


Pity for Lovers and Fools

by uniqueinalltheworld



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Cassandra and Dorian are gay best friends, Dorian gets a Mabari, Emotional Constipation, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hawke's war hammer weighs more than she does, Hurt/Comfort, I regret the amount of quality time I have spent with the wiki page on Qunlat, I try to at least buy canon dinner first, M/M, Minor Canon character death, Minor gore at the end of chapter six and throughout chapter seven, POV Alternating, Romance, Several chapters include legitimate smut now, Slow Burn, did I mention slow burn?, everyone hates Crestwood, nerdy language stuff, precious emotionally stunted children, so many Tevene, so much Qunlat, torture in chapter four
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 07:21:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 59,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3927910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqueinalltheworld/pseuds/uniqueinalltheworld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian has never blasted a fingertip off for another man before. For Iron Bull, it would hardly be the first time.<br/>A story about idiots in love. And, of course, the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One: Glass Cannons

The first time it happened, it nearly killed him. He stopped, following through the motion already happening in the swing of his axe without any real meaning behind it. Somewhere, he was vaguely aware that his swing ended in a spinal cord. He could hear the snap, feel the bone splintering through the long haft. It wasn’t important. Darkspawn blood sprayed, burning his cheek like black acid. That wasn’t important either. 

The only thing that mattered in that moment was the sound of Dorian laughing. The mage stood slightly crouched, staff twirling lurid and firey in his hands as he conjured gouts of flame. Bull had never known that a darkspawn could scream before this moment, nor that the prissy Tevinter mage got his kicks anywhere other than books. 

Dorian’s was not a beautiful laugh. It was twisted and slightly ugly. A high pitched giggle pulled from the part deep within him that liked hurting people--not good people, and not too much, but just a bit. Just enough. The Iron Bull was familiar with that kind of laughter. He felt an answering chuckle start deep in his throat, was not paying attention when he started to let his guard down. 

A flail swung at him low from his blind side. Had he been looking around the way he was supposed to, he would have had the creature’s skull in five or six pieces before it ever got this close to him. As it was, he had no option but to throw himself backwards, landing hard on his rear. The flail still left a long gouge that would have taken out his eye all over again had anything still been there. He looked up, his axe already swinging blindly at his attacker but there was no need.   
Dorian pointed, not with his staff, which he had apparently forgotten, but with his empty outstretched hand. He uttered two syllables that The Iron Bull would later grin at because they sounded much like a Qunlat swear word. The darkspawn in front of him exploded. He had never seen anything quite like it. One second it was raising its weapon and the next it was just a pair of bloody legs below the knee and he and the gray dwarven stone around him were splattered with blood and chunks of meat for a radius of at least two meters. He didn’t understand any magical theory, but the spell didn’t leave behind the scent of floral residue and rot of the Iron Bull had come to associate with the Tevinter’s necromancy spells. Instead, the air crackled with residual energy. He thought he might be able to taste the essence of magic itself on his tongue were it not for the fine pink mist of darkspawn blood that tinged the air around him and made him afraid to breathe.

Dorian stumbled, looking stunned and leaning heavily on his staff but straightening the moment he realized someone was looking at him.   
“And here I thought brutes like you were here to defend frail poncy mages,” he smirked. “It seems I had it the wrong way ‘round.” With that, he fainted dead away.

“Dorian!” the inquisitor bellowed. She had been forced back towards the deep road tunnels, unable to execute a proper offense while compensating for the shimmering magical barriers he had suddenly allowed to fall. The lone remaining Hurlock landed a long scratch on her arm and she let forth a torrent of invective that would have smoked the beards off of her old masters in the carta. It was not until Blackwall rushed over, beheaded the thing with a grunt, that the Iron Bull realized he was still sitting on his ass with his mouth open. 

Kyren Cadash dusted herself off and went to see to Dorian while Blackwall knelt next to Bull, offering a flask. “Gargle and spit,” he told the Qunari gruffly. “Trust me when I say their blood is not something you will enjoy having swallowed by accident.” Bull did as he was told, if only to avoid making an unsettling comment to the gray warden about people who swallowed such things on purpose. Everyone thought no one else could possibly know about their secret rituals.  
He chuckled. “Only a savage would laugh at violence as though it entertained,” Dorian sniffed. 

“Does that make you a savage too, ‘vint?” Bull asked.  
Dorian flushed nearly the shade of his wine-colored cloak, and The Iron Bull thought that was almost as nice as the giggling. That color could get him in a great deal of trouble very quickly.

“I appreciate excellent form, nothing more.”

I do like a challenge, The Bull smiled, but he didn’t say anything aloud. Cadash, ever the practical dwarf, cleaned off one of her daggers, then used it to cut a strip from the cleanest part of the cloth under her armor and handed it to Bull. “Thanks Boss,” he rumbled and slapped the fabric over his ruined eye. 

“You could at least adjust it properly,” Kyren growled. “You already went and got your eye patch hacked off.” She whipped the fabric off of his head and then laid it back on, her gentle, blunt fingers belied the roughness of her words. She smoothed the linen, already soaked in his blood, and tied it around the back of his head. The Iron Bull avoided hissing at the pressure, but it was a narrow thing. They made their way back to camp, only running into a few wolves on the way back. Bull wondered, not wholly irritably, if every part of the south was this full of all these fucking wolves. He didn’t even know what the hell they were eating out here, scarce as prey was in comparison. 

The inquisitor insisted on skinning the damned things, a process the bull would never admit in a hundred years made him squeamish. It reminded him too much of Par Vollen. Of the fate traitors were told to expect from the Ben-Hassrath.   
Dorian had no such compunctions. He ripped the hides from the wolves’ flesh with a flick of his staff. Blackwall, still without comment, rolled the damned things up and tucked them into his pack. 

They reached camp and Kyren hurried Bull to the healer’s tent. It was astonishing, really, how the tiny dwarven inquisitor could make herself so intimidating. Once inside, she had a quick, whispered conversation with Stitches and then let herself sink into the background with just as little effort. Bull bit back the urge to try to recruit her.

Stitches, along for the mission’s medical needs, carefully peeled back the makeshift bandage. Bull did let out a hiss, just a small one, when Stitches began dabbing at the cut with a stinging green liquid. There was something about the way the ointment hurt. The burning-wet push-pull better-worse. It was a sort of invasion that felt clean. 

The antiseptic held all of his attention until his ears pricked at the sound of rummaging behind him. Stitches had a third of a profanity out of his mouth before he decided better of cursing someone who was not really one of the chargers. 

“I was just looking for burn cream,” Dorian mumbled.

The Iron Bull struggled to remember what Dorian could have gotten burned on. He didn’t look terribly singed the last time Bull saw him.

Stitches went past Bull, examined whatever Dorian had burned for less than a perfunctory moment. He could not see the injury without turning, without being obvious. His loyal medic, he knew, would not tell him, simply because he wished to know.  
The healer made his own rummage through the supplies and handed over the find to Dorian. Bull saw the jar when the mage sat in the only available space remaining in the healer’s tent to apply it. Surprised, he raised his lone remaining eyebrow at Stitches, who was not forthcoming with any clarifying information. The burn cream he had handed Dorian was his own special concoction. It came in a white stone jar, a rune of rejuvenation on the underside of the lid. The wax seal on the jar’s outside held a short series of letters and numerals Bull assumed meant something about the contents to Stitches. He only knew that the stuff worked, and that it was impossibly expensive to make for all of its working. He had never seen him offer it to someone who wasn’t a charger before, and certainly not for a scorching as superficial as Dorian’s burn seemed to be. Well, superficial by Bull's standards. He would keep the finger, at least.

Dorian opened the jar left-handed with some difficulty and then began to spread the thick ointment gently over his blackened fingertips. He looked otherwise uninjured but he appeared thoroughly shaken. Kyren chuckled. “There now, maybe a little fingertip scar, a little charring. No real harm done. Poor little glass cannon.” She thumped him on the shoulder hard enough that he nearly toppled.  
Dorian bristled. “What did you just call me?”

“Glass cannon. That’s what we call people like you in Orzammar. Mostly berserkers who decide that they move faster when they don’t put their damn armor on. You roll in all power and fanfare, do a ton of damage, but one hit and you shatter.” The inquisitor shrugged. “It’s not a bad thing. Just means you ought to make sure there’s someone more… bulwarky there to protect you.” Dorian looked as though he very much thought it was a bad thing.  
Bull rolled his lone eye. The Vint could take care of himself, as well as anyone else who came along. He’d made that much perfectly clear with his stunt from earlier.

He concentrated on him while he had his wound stitched. It was fast work, the gash long but shallow and clean. Easier to focus on, better to pull his mind there than allow himself to think about the slow, digging drag of thread through his insides. The thought made him slightly queasy, always had. Stitches crouched in front of him once he was done, both of his small hands grasping one of his large ones. He looked uncharacteristically somber, and Bull had a brief flash of terror as he thought of the taint, the infectious blood. “I did the best I could, Chief,” he said, a slight twitch of the lips giving him away, “but you’re going to lose the eye.” 

Dorian giggled.


	2. Chapter Two: Drinking Alone With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian is troubled by the events in the deep roads. Bull likes trouble. Everyone likes alcohol.

They trudged up the hill back to Skyhold. Kyren’s shaggy gray mountain pony, the only mount small enough for her tiny legs, ambled gamely up the steep slope. Dorian sat astride one of those awful dragon-lizard-horse _things_ , still cradling his arm as though he had had his hand blown off and not merely singed the fingertips. The Iron Bull and Blackwall brought up the rear, trudging up the slope on their exhausted, sodden mounts.

 

“…and I have no idea how wounds such as those will heal in this damp climate of yours. Honestly, it’s a wonder that the entire continent hasn’t fallen to frostbite and gangrenous infection.”

Bull spurred his irritable warhorse forward in time to make out the end of Dorian’s rant to the inquisitor over the persistent squelch of muck.

 

“I wouldn’t worry about that for your poor fingers,” he told Dorian as he drew level with the mage. “No exposed flesh. Just a surface burn. Damp might even do it good.”

 

“I wasn’t referring to my own injuries,” Dorian sniffed. His gaze skittered away, and Bull brought one clawed fingertip up to brush lightly against his own bandaged eye socket.

 

As they reached the summit, Kyren kicked her pony into a dead run, releasing a shrill dwarven war cry. Bull chuckled, already hearing Josephine’s sternly worded memorandum on decorum in his head, and spurred his tired horse after her, no thoughts in his head besides a warm bath, a cold ale, and putting as much distance as possible between himself and the freezing damp and Blackwall’s unbelievably sad beard.

                                                   

He was finishing grooming his poor abused horse when he heard Dorian outside, talking to Solas of all people.

 

“It’ll be lovely, we’ll go to the bar, have something appallingly fruity, and talk about really old magic.”

 

Solas sighed. Bull was getting better at cataloguing his sighs, thought this one seemed affirmative. He grinned. Time to pay Krem a visit.

 

“Honey, I’m home!” he bellowed, bursting into Herald’s Rest, named despite the fact that their dear herald rarely had the opportunity to spend much time there. She was here, now, though. He chuckled when his eye fell on Kyren, sitting solemnly in the corner with Blackwall and Cassandra, all three of them attempting to outdrink one another in absolute silence, a pile of septims, iridescent dragon scales, and a delicately carved wooden flute that seemed to be the prize cache in the center of the table. Josephine watched appreciatively, sipping delicately at an Antivan brandy from a table far over to the side.

 

He glanced at Blackwall and back to Josephine, then from Josephine to Cassandra. He walked past Josephine’s table, murmuring without breaking stride. “A good diplomat never misses an opportunity to be underestimated, ambassador.”

 

Josephine smirked almost indecently. She stood, passing him the unholy strong brandy—a vintage the Antivans deemed “just strong enough to keep conversation flowing”—and unfastening a delicate gold bracelet likely worth more than the entire rest of the cache thrice over. The Iron Bull had no doubt she would win it back.

 

Krem let out a low appreciative whistle behind him. “Ain’t that a sight?”

 

Bull snickered at him. “You know what they say. Qunari is the only thing that can outdrink a dwarf. Only thing that can outdrink a Qunari is a Lady Antivan.”

 

“I think you skipped a step there, chief,” Krem answered, glancing at Kyren, eyeing Josephine with a kind of bleary determination.

 

Bull shrugged. “I got an Antivan Brandy, and all it cost me was our lady inquisitor’s liver served on a plate.”

 

Krem snickered and led him to his chair, always empty when he returned to the tavern, though he had suspicions that Sera rubbed her ass on it in his absence.

 

Varric and Dagna, the tiny arcanist, were already there, Dagna talking rapidly about the value of adding some kind of magic drakestone inlays to Bianca, whom Varric was stroking protectively. She concluded her impassioned speech with a breathless and imploring “there are endless possibilities, without even coming close to changing the heart of her.”

 

Varric looked at her, something nostalgic and fond and just a little bitter in his eyes. He surrendered Bianca. Dagna leapt up immediately. Leaving her untouched drink and scampering back to the undercroft. “You won’t regret this, Varric!” she called over her shoulder, then began murmuring soothingly to Bianca.

 

Varric chuckled and began to hum under his breath.

 

Krem swiped the abandoned ale, scooting back into his own chair. He glanced around the tavern. Bull glanced with him, careful not to let his eye linger on any one group. Dorian entered, seeming to lever Solas before him by sheer force of will and mustache alone.

 

Cabot placed two… well, they appeared to be vases of wine soaked fruit, in front of Solas and Dorian. Bull settled in to watch the commotion. He wasn’t sure what Dorian wanted to talk to Solas about, but it clearly required a great deal of alcohol to even get him started. Solas wrinkled his nose at his beverage, but plucked a berry from the top of his cup with long fingers and then ate it, curling his tongue around the captured fruit to bring it to his mouth. Varric rolled his eyes.

 

“Can’t just eat like people, can he?” everyone at the table save Bull flinched as Sera spoke from above. She flung herself down from her balcony, giving Bull and Varric enough time to snatch their drinks from the table just before she landed. Krem was less lucky, and found himself sloshed with his stolen dwarven ale.

 

“Sorry killer,” Sera said unapologetically.

 

Bull kept a firm grip on his Antivan brandy as Sera settled in next to Krem. Let the elf steal someone else’s drink tonight. The brandy was good, plus he had earned it.

 

He turned his attention back to Dorian and Solas. It’s clear he missed something crucial because Solas was doing something that could almost be called laughing. “No,” he said, still smirking. “No, I believe that particular brand of magic is entirely Tevinter in origin. Elves are not generally so possessive.”

 

“You know what it means, though? The incantation? My ancient Tevene is a little rusty.”

 

Solas let loose a high pitched giggle. Bull glanced over and noted that, though Dorian’s drink remained largely untouched, Solas had been steadily nibbling away at the contents of his glass and the fruit was now half gone. “Oh, yes.” He leaned over and whispered in Dorian’s ear. Dorian went as red as his wine and quickly turned away, fishing fruit out of his glass. He quickly gave up on the individual pieces and titled his vase-sized glass up, draining the mingled wine and fruit juice. Bull took that to be his cue.

 

The Iron Bull stood up and heaved his way over to the bar. He removed the glass from Dorian’s hand and held it out behind him, feeling Sera snatch it up only seconds later. “Got any Maraas-Lok?” He asked Cabot. “Dorian needs some.”

 

Cabot snickered. “Sure do. Best thing there is for killing rats.” He pulled out a small glass tankard and a bottle marked with a pictogram of a horned skull.

 

Dorian rolled his eyes at the delicate green and surprisingly lush-scented liquor. “Don’t you have anything stronger?”

 

Cabot looked blandly at him. “I can go to the back and get the actual rat poison.”

 

Dorian sighed and quaffed the proffered drink. His entire body immediately seized and he slammed the glass down, slapping his hand repeatedly on the table and gasping. Bull just sipped his brandy and chuckled at him.

 

“Still want the rat poison?” Bull asked.

 

“I think I just had it,” Dorian rasped back at him. “I should have learned by now not to underestimate the stealth of the Qunari.” He held his glass out. “Another.”

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Bull finally asked after Dorian’s next glass.

 

“No. Well, yes, but not… not out loud.”

 

Bull digested that statement, and Dorian seemed relieved when Bull didn’t comment, just accepted his words for what they were.

 

“I miss things,” he blurted.

 

“Like nostalgia? Or like you’re not paying attention?” 

 

Dorian poured himself a third drink before he answered. Cabot left the bottle. “Both, I suppose. But I meant Tevinter.” He looked like he was expecting Bull to snort at him, to react with scorn for his home country.

 

Bull swallowed the mantras his reeducation had burned into him and did his best to digest them. They tasted a bit like Maraas-Lok. “Yeah?” He asked.

 

“What, that’s it? No snide jokes about my pampered upbringing? Nothing about missing slaves to rub my footsies?”

 

“Well, is that what you miss?”

 

Dorian chuckled. “No, not really. I mean, I suppose I miss having enough money to buy even necessities, but…” he trailed off. They sat and sipped in silence for a while. Bull felt the end of the sentence like poison pooling in a wound.

 

“I miss the bread,” Bull said quietly. “Qunari cuisine in general isn’t good for much. Too utilitarian. But the bread at the end of a long day… always fresh out of the oven, always as much as you need.” He sniffed the air, a reflex as he remembered the hearty brown loaves, and was caught in the smell of Dorian’s hair products, all cinnamon and spicy, and the understated scent of a fragrant cologne. It had to be Tevinter made. Orlesian perfumeries were all about lavender this year, and the smell was foresty and green. Surprisingly masculine, given Dorian’s fashion choices in other areas. It doesn’t cause a flare in his memory, is brand new, not anything to do with the stink of Seheron.

 

Dorian had to draw himself up to answer him. “I miss the spices. And the certainty. In Tevinter, I knew what I was supposed to be. I hated it, I didn’t want it, but I understood what the rules were. I knew who I was supposed to be. And there were chili noodles.”

 

The Iron Bull let loose a rumbling laugh, still partly caught up in the smell of him, partly in the Par Vollen training camps. “I think I can understand that.”

 

“I just… don’t know who I’m supposed to be anymore.” He looked up at the Bull with wide, honest eyes and Bull wondered how long it had been since Dorian admitted weakness like that. Certainly it hadn’t happened while he was sober. Even drunk as he was, Dorian seemed to snap out of the moment. Bull could see him pull his protective shell back on as surely as he cast the spell for frost armor. “Not that you’d know about that. None of that pesky free will plaguing the Qunari.” He fancied he felt a cold snap in the air.

 

Bull was all right with that. Couldn’t run around shirtless all the time without building some tolerance. “Hey, we let our mages pick what color thread they want their mouths sewn shut with.”

 

“Really?” Dorian was bleary-eyed and still drinking.

 

“No,” Bull laughed. “Fabric dye is a wasteful vanity. You should’ve known that.”

 

“Well what does the Qun make of your ridiculous circus pants, then?”

 

“What the Qun doesn’t know won’t hurt it. And these can only be seen across _half_ of Thedas.”

 

Bull is rewarded with half a snicker before Dorian began to wobble slightly in his chair, the laughter having thrown him just enough off balance.

 

“Maybe you should get to bed, Vint.”

 

“Oh, I’d like to,” Dorian’s words are remarkably unslurred, “But I’m afraid I can’t feel my legs.” Bull counts backwards in his head. In the time he has had half an Antivan brandy, Dorian has had five full tankards of Maraas-Lok. Not to mention some of that fruity crap and several mouthfuls of brandy Bull has been studiously not watching Dorian steal.

 

“Would you like me to help you to your room?” Bull asked.

 

Dorian considered, finally nodding. “We will not speak of this, after.”

 

Bull shrugged. “As you wish.” He levered Dorian out of his seat, careful to keep space between their bodies, using his arms to steady the smaller man. Just one friend helping another home. No implications of anything else. Dorian cared about that shit.

 

They made it out the tavern door without incident, Bull pulling in closer to better steady him when there stopped being people around. Dorian stiffened slightly, then swayed into the contact. He turned slightly green when they reached the door at the base of the library tower.

 

Dorian opened it. “Oh Maker,” he mumbled. “Stairs.”

 

“Do you trust me?” Bull asked.

 

“Not in the slightest,” Dorian sniffed.

 

“That’s all right.” The Iron Bull swept Dorian up into a bridal carry in his arms and began to charge up the stairs. Dorian let out a stream of Tevene and common curses, too disoriented to distinguish words in a single tongue. The only distinct phrase the Bull caught was “Andraste’s pearly nipple rings” before they reached the alcove just outside Dorian’s bedchamber. He kept one of the small rooms above the garden. An odd choice for someone who didn’t particularly wish to hear the chant of light eighteen hours a day. Bull slowed there, putting Dorian down gently before opening the door and grabbing a mercifully empty bucket from next to the hearth. He made it back just as Dorian doubled over, retching onto his shoes. “I doubt you’re even sorry for that,” the Bull commented mildly.

 

Dorian shrugged and retched again, this time into the bucket. “Maybe a little bit.” His voice came out muffled.

 

“Take off your clothes and get in bed,” Bull told him.

 

“Why Bull,” Dorian managed to raise one eyebrow elegantly, despite his drunkenness and the vomit. “Taking advantage in my weakened state?”

 

Bull rolled his eye. “You’re in no shape to clean this crap up and your clothes are covered in sick. Just strip down and get under the covers, I’ll take care of the rest of it.”

 

Dorian hesitated and Bull sighed. “Look, I’m going to go get a bunch of rags or something to clean with and I’ll be back in a minute. Change while I’m gone if you’re worried you’re going to compromise my maidenly innocence.”

 

Dorian nodded and immediately began undoing buckles with fumbling, drunken fingers. Bull’s hand twitched with a sudden urge to help him with that. But that wasn’t what he told Dorian he would do, so he went outside, took a few deep, calming breaths, and then went in search of cleaning supplies.

 

By the time he returned, Dorian was tucked into bed with his sheets beneath his chin. The vomit had been scrubbed from his lips and moustache. Bull cleaned up, feeling Dorian watch him intently with those bleary amber eyes. He finished, piling the rags and laundry outside for the maids to pick in the morning.

 

Dorian made a small noise as he made to leave.

 

“What?” Bull asked, “looking for a good night kiss?”

 

“It’s a thought,” Dorian answered, and wasn’t that a surprise.

 

Bull shook his head. “You’ll remember who I am in the morning.” He had meant to say something else. What, he wasn’t quite sure. His reeducators would be disappointed in him.

 

Dorian looked unaccountably sad at this. “It’s likely I won’t remember any of this in the morning.”

 

“How about this?” Bull crossed the room in two long strides and pressed gentle lips to Dorian’s forehead. Like he was tucking in a child—or Krem, on one of his bad days. Just one friend helping the other home. Because that’s all it was, no matter that Dorian’s eyes had briefly gleamed honey brown and vulnerable. Maybe someday Dorian would unfuck himself enough to look at someone else like that, but that honesty was not for him. Could not be for him. At least not when Dorian was sober. Bull swallowed the smell of cinnamon and forest green and made himself be okay with that.

 

“Good night, Dorian,” he whispered.

 

The mage smiled shyly at him before drifting off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maraas literally means “alone” in Qunlat, and Maraas-Lok translates as something akin to “alone-drink.” Thus I present you with this horribly pretentious explanation of a chapter title so that all (threeish) of my readers can fully appreciate how clever I am. Because my self-esteem is externally motivated. Comments are always appreciated.


	3. Chapter Three: Gaatlok, and Other Wholesome Flavorings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian is very concerned that he may in fact have died last night. Cassandra thinks she might kill him. Cabot can fix anything short of fade spirits or dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter I've written from Dorian's point of view, now with the promised Cassandra! Also, I know it's on the short side. Bull's next chapter will be up soon! Please let me know what you think!

Dorian woke up, tasting what he was certain were the ashes of his own tongue in his mouth. He took stock of his surroundings. He was in his own bed, in nothing but his smallclothes, alone. That was not unexpected. He rolled over, groping for the glass of water someone—not him, most likely—had left by his bedside. That _was_ unexpected. He groaned as he realized he could actually remember last night.

_You’ll remember who I am in the morning._

 

Did Bull think he had somehow forgotten? Even five tankards of Maraas-Lok and some Antivan brandy deep, he could not forget the infuriating Qunari. Now he could also not forget the barely-there brush of Bull’s lips on his forehead.

 

Dorian felt a prickle of emotion that he chose to interpret as irritation. If Bull hadn’t been a better man, he could have kissed him. They could have fucked, quick and dirty and drunk and more than barely numb—Bull hadn’t lied about the Qunari liquor killing your nerves. They could have fucked and it could have been over. He had really wanted it to be over.

 

Wanting so rarely made things so.  He rose, dressed. He resisted the urge to throw his clothing on haphazardly, taking time to unfasten and then refasten each buckle, pulling them tight against his skin so that the clothes appeared tailored for him. They were, of course. But it was that they looked like they were that was important. His hands, still shaky, took barely longer than usual to shave and apply his cosmetics. Blessed was the Maker the day he planned out muscle memory. He began to haphazardly recombine cosmetics bag and shaving kit before deciding not to bother with putting them away just yet. It wasn’t like he had much else to pack before they left for the Exalted Plains in the afternoon.

 

He sauntered outside, closing his eyes against the splintering agony of the midmorning sun. If he kept his face smooth and his head tilted he could look like he was enjoying the day rather than hiding from it. His feet carried him around winding passages and stairs out to Herald’s Rest with little input from the rest of him. He opened his eyes only for brief intervals to get his bearings when he turned corners or descended stairways and did not keep them from closing immediately after until he was hunkered down at the bar. Cabot slid him a plate of Orlesian toast and strawberries without being asked.

 

Dorian gingerly attempted to take a bite of the soft toast. It did not crunch, but he felt it crumble on some sort of emotional level anyways. Cabot began fiddling with something in a mug. Dorian saw at least three kinds of ground herbs and a small jot of whiskey go in, but lost track after that.

 

The door opened and Cassandra dragged herself in. Her braid was rumpled from its usual halo around her head and she wore the same linen shirt and trousers she had last night. In spite of his own aching head, Dorian grinned. Linen creased something awful and Cassandra’s clothing held lines that made him wonder if she had passed out in a barn.

 

“Bacon,” she grunted.

 

“Do you want that with—“ Cabot began.

 

“I said bacon.”

 

Cabot shrugged and went back to the small tavern kitchen, the sound of meat hitting a hot pan sounded unnaturally loud in Dorian’s ears. Both he and the seeker flinched. Cabot came back, sighed, and fixed a second mug of the… something identical to the first. He set one mug in front of each of them, the foam just slightly blue.

 

“What in Andraste’s name is that?” Cassandra asked, even as Dorian shrugged and started to drink.

 

“Cures what ails you,” Cabot grunted before edging out back to check on the bacon. It was his terrifyingly vague descriptor for everything he put down in front of a member of the inquisition without being asked for it. The descriptor had once led Cole, drunk out of his blessed addled head and having little grasp for figurative language at the best of times, to attempt to dose everyone in the infirmary with Antivan fire-whiskey. Actually, that plan had worked out shockingly well all things considered.

    

This particular “cure,” as Dorian discovered, caused a deep wrenching sort of discomfort all the way down to his organs and bones, gagging, and profuse sweating, followed by a precipitous drop in the severity of the symptoms of his hangover. Cassandra sniffed and touched tentative lips to the foam. She made a noise of disgust at the first sip and Dorian was pleased, even while sweating and gasping and feeling a tingling in his fingertips that could be only one ingredient, that he had remained silent through his ordeal with the concoction.

 

     Cabot returned with a plate heaped high with more dead pig than Dorian really wished to think about, even with his hangover largely gone. “Is there _lyrium_ in this?” Cassandra asked waspishly.

 

     Cabot shrugged. “A little bit. I modified a very good recipe shared with me by Master Tethras.”

 

     Cassandra seemed stricken in a way that had little to do with her surely throbbing headache. “Do you give this to many people?”

 

     Cabot laughed gruffly, apparently cottoning on to a meaning that eluded Dorian. “I leave the lyrium out when I serve it to the Templars, Seeker. Current and former. I’m generous, not stupid. Finish your drink, eat your bacon, and stop fussing so much.”

 

     Cassandra did as she was bade, slumping against the bar counter.

 

     “So,” Dorian began, eager to move away from the topic of lyrium-addicted southern Templars, nibbling on his Orlesian toast and feeling much more himself. “Where were _you_ until the early hours last night, Seeker?”

 

     “I passed the evening with Blackwall. It appears that we have… much in common.” A light blush stained her pale cheeks and Dorian was kind enough not to comment on it. Ah, so she _had_ spent the night in a barn.

 

     “Tell me, darling, does that delightfully repressed need to serve and command come out in the bedroom? Which of you is the swooning maiden and which is the dashing chevalier? I could see it going both ways if you don’t mind my saying so.”

 

     Cassandra actually squawked, looking at him in genuine surprise. “Not that kind of passing the evening, Messere Pavus. We simply sat. And talked. And got extremely drunk. Well, were already extremely drunk. And bereft of our posessions. And then got more drunk.”

 

     “Call me Dorian, please, Lady Seeker. And yes, losing your prized possessions by betting against an Antivan will most assuredly turn into a bonding experience.”

 

     “Call me Cassandra, then.” She smiled crookedly, the small action almost entirely obscured by the scars tugging at her lips. Dorian had always assumed the stern woman rather hated him. He wondered now how many of her smiles he had missed because he hadn’t been looking for them. “And yes, Josephine does have a tendency to take things from us we are not prepared for. But I never bet anything I am not willing to lose.”

 

     Well, thought Dorian. That was cryptic. And quite a statement coming from a woman who had bet literally everything on the inquisition. He chose a lighter train of conversation. “Well, Cassandra, I spent the evening vomiting spectacularly in my own quarters, having been convinced to try a unique Qunari invention known as Maraas-Lok.”

 

     Cassandra snorted derisively. “Bull gave it to you, did he?”

 

Dorian simply nodded.

 

“You do know they put Gaatlok in it for flavoring.”

 

“I did not, but that does explain some things.”

 

“Why on earth would you drink anything the Iron Bull hands you in a tankard?”

 

Dorian chuckled, a reflex. It stung less if you were the first to laugh at your own foolishness. “I performed a spell that was dangerous to the rest of the party, inadvisable for my own health, and also brought up a few memories of my loving father because I was being irrational and frantic. I then made irrational decisions regarding the Iron Bull and my beverage choices in hopes of forgetting my earlier ones.”

 

Cassandra stiffened at the phrase “loving father.” She had been there, had stood outside the inn in Redcliffe with Bull while he and Kyren went to see his father. Neither warrior ever acknowledged it, but Dorian knew they had heard everything. “Surely you don’t mean…” she trailed off and Dorian at least felt grateful that she had the grace to be ashamed of her implication. Many people accused him outright with much less reason to do so.

 

“My dear lady Cassandra,” he said quietly, no longer looking at her. “I am certain you are not about to accuse me of being a malifecar. Because if you were to say such a thing, despite the fact that I would most certainly lose my life in the attempt, given your prodigious abilities and close friends among the ex-templars, I _will_ find a way to make certain that it is the last accusation to ever pass your lips.”

 

To his utter shock, Cassandra _laughed._ “I do not doubt that,” she said, her Nevarran accent thicker in her amusement, “but perhaps it would be best if we both survived the morning. Forgive my implication, Dorian. You are a good man. I spoke from the habits of a life-long Templar.”

 

It figured to Dorian, in some strange way, that his death threat would reassure Cassandra of his noble intentions. He had not, however, expected her to simply admit she was wrong and apologize. “Now that is something you don’t see every day.” Dorian had gone from refusing to glance at her to open staring in the blink of an eye.

 

“What?”

 

“An Andrastian who apologizes.” Cassandra laughed again, and Dorian found he rather liked the sound, tension melting slowly from his body as they put the moment behind them. “You are a singular woman, Cassandra Penteghast.” He said the words softly, leaning in and finding that he meant them. “If we had both stayed trapped in our charming noble houses and lived the lives our families wished of us, you are exactly the sort of woman I would want to be forced to embark on a mutual, unloving death by cirrhosis with.”

 

Cassandra smiled again. “I would hate you passionately.”

 

“And I you. But there’s other things I hate more than this.”


	4. Chapter Four: Side Effects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Iron Bull remembers reeducation in his dreams. Specifically, he remembers that reeducation was total bullshit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fair warning this chapter is substantially more dark than its predecessors. Warning for some light torture (is there such a thing as light torture?). Next chapter will be happier and have both Dorian and Bull in it, I swear.

Bull had The Dream again. He maintained the same polite public fiction as everyone else in the Ben-Hassrath: Qunari don’t dream. Of course they don’t dream. Because there are also no mages drawing their power from the fade among the Qunari. Because, apparently, Qunari have no connection to the fade and therefore don’t dream. Because there are no such thing as Sarebaas and the Antaam were a unit that sat around their entire lives sipping cocoa and eating sugarplums while the meatheads in the Beresaad did all the real work.  Bull thought it was a testament to the outside world’s racism that no one bothered to think about the no dreams bullshit for more than the quarter second it took to swallow it. But sometimes he wanted it to be true. Especially on nights when he had The Dream. Again.

 

_“What is your name?” the woman before him asked. She was tall, even for a Qunari. Likely shorter than she seemed, but he was kneeling on the ground, his arms bound behind him and she was towering above. It was intentional. Everything was intentional. He supposed she was technically a Tamassran, but he didn’t feel comfortable calling her that. He had his Tama, thank you very much, and despite how wrong and foolish it was, he knew she loved him. He wasn’t sure if he loved her back, but it was the closest he had ever felt to it._

_The force magic cracked across his face like a whip. It stung, but it didn’t leave marks like the Vints had in Seheron. No free mages under the Qun my ass, Bull thought rebelliously. He didn’t like the magic, the punishment. He would have preferred the stinging burns of blood mages in Seheron. They had left acid blistered across his face and fire and smoke scorching his soot-blackened lungs. He had known it was real, then. Here, with this Sarebaas-who-was-also-Tamassran, he had only his memory to guide him. And he knew well, knew intimately first hand, that physical pain was forgotten before any other sensation, leaving you with only the memory of the circumstance and the hazy knowledge that it had happened. That too was intentional._

In his waking thoughts, the thing Bull detested most about the dream was that it changed a little every time. He did not have clear, certain memories of the actual events of his reeducation. Only a drug-addled haze and crisp absolute mantras and The blight-damned Dream to guide him. He thought often of Helsima. She had known how to talk to dragons, or something like that. He remembered asking her about the rite—“I remember that was a difficult time for me. I do not remember why”—and trying his hardest to look like he could not empathize. He knew he would have become her, or something like her but worse had he had a stronger mind like hers. Tenacity born of a tougher will to live. But he did not have a strong mind, and so he survived reeducation, sane and intact. Well, except for that damnable Dream. Stitches called shit like that “side effects.”

 

_“What is your name?” the Tama/Bas asked again. A sickly greenish sort of lightning curled around her fist. She would hit him again. He didn’t much care, but given the choice, he supposed he preferred not to be hit._

_“Hissrad,” he said._

_She struck him again. He had spoken this time, but he had been wrong. Now he understood that. The only acceptable path was the correct one. There were no half measures. No mistakes in the Qun._

_“Qunari do not have names,” she hissed._

_He tried again. “We are all of one body. The only names we require are the duties demanded of us by the Qun.”_

_“Very good, Hissrad,” she said. She did not hit him again. He had given the right answer. She would be proud of him. He was a fast learner. “Now tell me, what is it that you know?”_

_Not jack shit, he thought. Certainly not his own name, apparently. Another thought came hot on the heels of the first: Kolsun’s hairy ballsack but he must have been in the world for a long time to grow attached to the idea of names, to thinking that his own actually means something._

_He had been lost in thought for too long, and the Tama/Bas lifted her arm again. She was left-handed, he noted distractedly. “I know nothing--” he did not dare to speak quickly. Qunari, at least in the ideal sense of reeducation, do not rush things. “--except that wisdom which the Qun teaches me. And so because I know the Qun I know the wisdom of all things.”_

_She struck him again. It always happened like that. Bull couldn’t figure out why. He had done the right thing. He had given the right answer. “Very good,” she said._

Bull’s eye snapped open and he lay in his bed, breathing hard and rubbing his face with shaking, unbound hands. As always, there was no mark there. As always, nothing had happened.


	5. Chapter Five: About Last Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull doesn't know what he's saying anymore, Cole doesn't know what privacy is, and nobody knows where to find the inquisitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in one day! Yay me! Also, as promised, Bull and Dorian are actually in the same room in this section. Let the slow burn commence!

Bull awoke fully the next morning to find Cole hovering around his bed, his hand poised nervously near Bull’s head. Bull resisted a profound urge to reach for his headboard and the hand axe that’s mounted there for the express purpose of dealing with people who feel the need to hover above his bed.

 

“What is it, kid?” he asked, his voice tinged with early morning and resignation.

 

“I was going to hit you in the face, The Iron Bull,” he said. “But I am not sure that hitting you will help you hurt less because hitting is usually bad and Varric says I should start asking permission before I help people when it involves touching them.”

 

Yeah, it was way too early for this shit. “Are you asking my permission to hit me, kid?” he growled.

 

“Yes, The Iron Bull. Did I do it wrong? I can make you forget—“

 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Bull said in a rush before Cole could do anything more with the forgetting. “Go ahead, kid. Go for it.”

 

Despite the permission he had just given, he was not braced for the quick, snapping blow Cole delivered, nor had he remembered the spirit boy’s deceptive strength. It hurt like a son of a bitch and he could feel where there would be a bruise on his face, just a light one, without even bringing a hand up to touch it. He touched it anyways. It sent a blossoming wince over his entire right cheek. Bull grinned. “Thanks, kid. That did help, actually.”

 

“I am glad, The Iron Bull. You should be happy.”

 

Dorian and Cassandra were already there when he approached Herald’s Rest around lunchtime. Cassandra still wore her clothes from last night, though they seemed much worse for wear. He hoped her walk of shame had been worth it, wherever she wound up last night. Weeks ago, he would have liked to make it worth it for her, but her distaste could not have been clearer had she tacked a hand-written “not interested” sign to her breastplate. Dorian on the other hand… Dorian smelled like the color green and a little bit like cinnamon. Dorian had leaned into him. Dorian had asked for a kiss good night.  He could work with Dorian.

 

The object of his attentions glanced around then, his eyes snagging on Bull’s bulky form and then snapping away. He looked… Bull didn’t think regretful was quite the right word, but his soft brown eyes certainly weren’t filled with longing. If anything, the mage looked kind of pissed at him.

 

 _You’ll remember who I am in the morning._ Well, he hadn’t been wrong about that.

 

He sighed a bit and then took the bar stool next to Dorian’s, anyways. If anyone asked, he could tell them he chose the seat that would be most convenient for Cabot. Plus there were only four bar stools anyways.  It was what he was telling himself, at least.

 

“Must you sit there?” Dorian asked irritably.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Is it a crime to want to sit near a handsome man?” Bull asked sweetly. He seemed to have suddenly developed a habit of blurting out things other than what he had meant to say.

 

“Depends on what part of the continent you’re standing in,” Dorian muttered darkly, though Bull thought the sentences seemed like they were not truly meant for him. He didn’t press the issue, merely waved Cabot over only to discover that the dwarf had already begun frying up potatoes for him.

 

Bull liked Cabot. For all of his irritation and posturing the man took good care of his own. Even as he was thinking, Cabot returned with a large plate of fried and shredded potatoes—Fereldans called them something different down south, something to do with a war hero who ate them; or, knowing Fereldans, a war hero’s dog—and a mostly empty plate with a stack of link sausages. Bull smiled and used a fork—the utensils always seemed too small in his hand and it was partly for that reason that he spent a lot of time practicing with them—to nudge a good portion of his potatoes onto the plate with sausages.

 

“What on earth are you doing with your hash browns?” So _that’s_ what Fereldans called them.

 

Bull answered Dorian, pulling the most bland and Sten-like face he could manage. “There is a saying within the Qun: place that which feeds you in offering to the goddess, and she may be appeased.  Fail to appease and she may take all you have. In Kolsun’s name we act, in Kolsun’s name we pray.” 

 

Dorian made a small scoffing noise before turning back to his suddenly empty plate.

 

“What’s wrong, Sparky?” Sera asked, coming to sit next to Bull while munching on what was formerly Dorian’s Orlesian toast.

 

“Old Qunari proverb, you say.”

 

Bull smirked at him. “I’ll admit it loses a little something in the translation.

 

Dorian sighed. Cassandra grunted something that sounded a bit like “blood money” and surrendered a portion of her cooled bacon to the elf.

 

“Where’s Inky?” Sera asked. “I usually eat her strawberries, yeah? Plus we’re supposed to be headed off somewhere elfy today.”

 

“She has a point,” Dorian mumbled. “If I am to be frog marched to the ass end of Thedas to close rifts and protect townsfolk, it would be a very good idea for us to bring the only person who can close rifts with us.”

 

“Which warrior is going with you guys?” Bull asked.

 

The three members of the inner circle looked at him. “It’s me, isn’t it,” he said.

 

Cassandra nodded slowly. “I am afraid that is the case.”

 

“Well,” he sighed, “better go find the boss, then.”

 

“Lady Cadash continued drinking with Josephine last night long after Blackwall and I conceded to superior livers,” Cassandra said. “I am not certain she will be amenable to waking.”

 

Sera was uncharacteristically silent at this news, and Bull thought she looked almost hurt for a moment.

 

“Considering the state you were in this morning, Lady Seeker, I doubt very much she is still alive.”  Dorian smiled a little fondly.

 

“Dorian, I told you to call me Cassandra.”  Bull raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t thought anyone—especially not a mage from Tevinter—would get on a first name basis with the Lady Seeker in less than a year’s time. But here they were, bonded by Cabot’s swill and mutual suffering. He hoped that they would soon progress to the kind of closeness that would allow Dorian to give Cassandra makeup tips. She’d look good with a little kohl.

 

“Oh, what, you two buddy-buddy now?” Trust Sera to be unable to keep her mouth shut the one time Bull had decided not to torment someone.

 

“Yes,” Cassandra answered, her deep voice oozing sarcasm. “We stay up nights talking about boys and trading hair accessories.”

 

“Ain’t no help for the likes of him,” Sera jerked her head at Dorian, “but I could give you a woman or two to talk about.”

 

Sometimes it was easy to forget that Dorian was technically an extremely powerful noble. When he silenced Sera with a single twitch of an elegantly manicured eyebrow, it was impossible to remember anything else. Sera cleared her throat. “Uh, meaning no disrespect, of course, Your Seekerness.”

 

 They found Cadash half an hour later, curled up, of all places, inside of the large trunk in Josephine’s office. “I did not put her there until I needed space to meet with one of the Rivaini clan matriarchs,” the Antivan said by way of explanation. The flute was lying next to her dagger in a half-open desk drawer and the money was nowhere to be found, but Josephine’s recently acquired dragon scales sat shimmering in a small basket on her desk. “And I did put a very nice Orlesian throw on her.”

 

Dorian stammered at her for a moment before Josephine reached forwards and put a delicately manicured hand under his chin, gently clicking his jaw shut.

 

Bull sighed and simply bent over the open trunk. “Boss?” He asked quietly. “You alive still?”

 

“No,” Kyren moaned, eyes still shut. “’m dead. Find someone else to do the ‘quisiting.”

 

“Okay boss, come here.” Bull gathered Kyren into his arms, elbows bumping against the wood of the chest. 

 

“’m not going out today. ‘s too bright. Put me back ‘n th’ box.”

 

“Gotta go out, boss. Gotta save the world.”

 

“Horns pointing up,” she mumbled, then curled into his arms and went to sleep, drooling against his chest.

 

Iron Bull sighed, allowing Kyren to nuzzle him. Sera walked alongside, bouncing every other step or so in an attempt to get a good look at the inquisitor. “Proper soused, she is,” the elf said.

 

Bull shrugged and Cadash used the motion as an opportunity to press her face further into what Krem termed his “pillowy man-bosoms.” “Should’ve known better than to go toe to toe with Josephine. Nobody makes it out of that.”

 

“Nightingale has been looking for someone to thoroughly interrogate her about her background,” Cassandra began, “You don’t think….”

 

Bull laughed. “I think Red knows as much as she needs now, or will soon, since the report is currently drying on Josie’s desk. But everyone had fun, at any rate.”

 

Dorian chuckled and led the way to the stables. “Never bet against an Antivan is one of the first rules they teach you in etiquette class. Though I don’t suppose Carta enforcers do much in the way of etiquette.”

 

“Etiquette’s for ponces, anyhow,” Sera announced. “Put her here, Bull, we can strap her to my hart’s arse.”  Everyone but Blackwall had been shocked when Sera’s mount of preference had turned out to be by far the elfiest but her hart, whom she had dubbed Ballbuster, honked happily whenever it saw her and seemed entirely willing to fling itself off cliffs in the name of service.

 

“Why Sera,” Dorian feigned shock, “are you defending the honor of our dear lady inquisitor?” The woman so named shifted when Bull slung her over Ballbuster’s hindquarters and began to snore.

 

“Yeah, well, it’s not like she can stand up for herself, shape that she’s in.”

 

Dorian smiled at her, and Sera gave him a shy sort of almost-grin back. “I’ll fetch your things if you wish to stay with Lady Cadash,” he offered.

 

“No chance, Sparky. Don’t want you pawing through my unmentionables, even if you are a poof.”

 

“By which you mean you haven’t bothered to pack yet,” Dorian finished, unruffled by Sera’s protests. “In that case I will let you go pack and I will stay with Kyren. Bull, get my possessions for me? And someone get a flask of Cabot’s hangover cure for her. It works wonders once you’re conscious enough to drink it.”

 

Bull stopped by the bar on the way to his room and explained the request. Cabot made a small facial movement that Bull decided was supposed to be smirking and mixed several liquids into a flask, then wrapped a small quantity of powdered herbs and other substances into a cloth sachet and handed both to Bull. “It only works if it’s freshly mixed,” he said, “so when she’s ready dump the powder in, screw the lid on tight and shake it three times while crowing like a rooster.”

 

“I think crowing is probably unnecessary, Cabot.”

 

“But you don’t _know_ it isn’t,” he answered.

 

Bull sighed his defeat and stuck both the flask and powder into his pants pocket before clomping up the stairs. He had never actually unpacked, and so he had little to repack, looking through his bags to make sure his clothing and weapons kit weren’t wet. Stitches had left more gauze and poultices for his wounded eye socket on his bedside table, wrapped in waxy cloth to keep them dry and a note in the healer’s crisp scrawl that said, “Remember Chief—Poultice. Not snack. Don’t get dead out there.” Bull stuffed them in his bag and walked the battlements until he got to Dorian’s rooms.

 

The mage’s bag was not sitting out to be grabbed. In fact, the only things that _were_ out were a tiny pot of kohl perhaps the size of Bull’s thumbnail, a shaving kit, and a jar of Stitches’ burn cream. This jar was new. The note on it said, “Take care of the Chief, we’ll take care of you. Dalish says you can show her some archery tricks if you’re still worried about payment.”

Dorian had tried to pay the chargers back. What kind of development was that? And where in the name of Kolsun’s frilly knickers was his crap? Bull tried to glance around without actually snooping anywhere. Ben-Hassrath do not snoop. He tentatively opened the chest of drawers on which the makeup bag had sat. They were all empty.

 

Bull decided that, though he was not about to stoop to snooping, maybe some light rummaging was in order. He opened the wardrobe to discover it bare except for some ancient elven rune he sincerely hoped was their idea of a mothball and not a booby trap. He shut the wardrobe door gingerly, just in case.

 

Was it possible that Dorian had simply allowed himself to be guided to a random room to vomit and go to sleep last night? Bull thought with a twinge of guilt that he’d do the same if an overly solicitous member of The Enemy had attempted to take him home in a weakened state. He sat down on the bucket from last night, now cleaned and overturned to aid in drying, and then he saw it.

 

Dorian’s bag was indeed packed and at the ready, as was his staff. They were tucked neatly under his bed, within easy reach were he to need to roll off and leave in a hurry. Bull shuddered. It was exactly how he had kept his stuff packed in Seheron. He gathered the kohl, burn cream, and shaving kit, ignored the whiff of forest green, must be his aftershave, and put it all into an outside pocket of Dorian’s pack.  He elected very, very hard to not think about it.

 

By the time he returned Dorian had saddled both Bull’s horse and his own weird lizard beast.  Sera returned bearing two bags, each apparently full of the first random objects she encountered in the inquisitor’s quarters with a few of her own possessions mixed in. She slung the packs onto Kyren’s little gray pony, presumably to be redistributed once the dwarf woke up.

 

“D’you have to ride that thing?” Bull asked, glowering at Dorian’s mount.

 

“Shh, you’re not a thing, Princess,” Dorian cooed, stroking the creature’s leathery neck. “Bull’s just upset because he isn’t the prettiest beast of burden in the room with you.”

 

“I’m happy you’d rather screw me than a horse, Dorian, but dragons aren’t meant to be tamed. Or named Princess and then ridden around like a pony.”

 

“Princess is not a dragon, she is a hunter shade dracolisk,” Dorian sniffed, as though this explained everything. “She is my dearest companion amongst the dreadfully crude vagaries of the south.”

 

Bull favored the _hunter shade dracolisk_ with an unctuous bow and rolled his eye. “Well, princess, you and your dracolisk better get a move on.” He handed over Dorian’s bag and turned his attention to his own horse.

 

Dorian had saddled the beast quite neatly, but was unaware of Bull’s horse’s tendency to puff out its belly to avoid the saddle being cinched properly.  “Okay, horse, come on,” Bull grunted, bringing his knee up to nudge the horse’s round bellyful of air.

 

“His name is Charlie, and he’s offended.”

 

“What?” the Iron Bull jumped as Cole appeared, seated sideways on the barn stall door.

 

Cole gestured to the horse. “His name is Charlie and when you just call him ‘horse’ he feels hurt. He doesn’t understand about the Qun. He would be nicer if you talked to him like a person. He wants to help.”

 

Bull stared at his horse.  “But he’s not a person. He’s a horse.”

 

“He doesn’t know that.”

 

Cole’s eyes were so blue and earnest that Bull felt he had to try. He sighed heavily. “Messere… Uh… Charlie. Would you please consider uh… letting me put the saddle on good and tight so that I don’t fall off of you and land on my ass? Pretty please.”

 

To Bull’s complete and utter astonishment, the hor—Charlie—let out the air he had been holding and allowed himself to be properly saddled. “Hey kid, would you look at—“ Bull turned back to Cole to find only empty space where the spirit had once been. He patted Charlie’s withers and muttered, “It’s okay, he just does that.”

 

The four of them moved out, Kyren’s still-riderless pony bringing up the rear along with the supply wagons and backup scouts. They exited the gates of Skyhold and were partway down the mountain before Sera asked, “Does anyone actually know which way we’re going?”

 

Dorian groaned and made to rummage through the inquisitor’s pack. Sera stopped him, turning fully around in the saddle in order to put hands in the pockets of Cadash’s pants. “Found it!” she called, fingers still in the dwarf’s back pocket.

 

“The maps?” Dorian asked.

 

“That too.”

 

Bull massaged the base of his horns with one hand. It was going to be a long trip.

 

Kyren woke up after they had been riding for a few hours, mumbling incoherently.

 

“Nice time with the ambassador last night?” Bull asked sweetly.

 

“Not that nice, I think…” Kyren trailed off. “I think I’d remember if we had sex….”

 

“I’d definitely remember titties like that,” Sera interjected with far more venom than Bull was accustomed to hearing from the elf. So it’s like that, then, he thought.

 

Bull waited the silence out until the tension stretched too thin and he had to break it, or else he would pluck at it like a lute wire. “C’mere, boss,” he rumbled. “This is supposed to help with your head.” He pulled out Cabot’s flask and the powders.

 

“What the fuck is that,” Kyren grunted.

 

“Cures what ails you,” Dorian and Bull intoned at the same time.

 

“All right, nobody laugh,” Bull warned. He unscrewed the flask with his left hand and then carefully tilted the ground herbs in with his right. He sighed, capped the flask again, and shook it three times, crowing like a rooster.


	6. Chapter Six: Stupid Shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Iron Bull contemplates doing stupid shit, being a stupid shit, and then really steps in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some stuff that might be considered gore at the very end of the chapter. Fair warning if that squicks you out.

The inquisitor shuddered, dropping to her knees as the potion swam through her.

 

“By the way,” Dorian added, “the initial drinking experience is unbelievably unpleasant.”

 

“You don’t say,” Kyren wheezed. She straightened up after a moment, though. It took just long enough to make Bull worry he had accidentally poisoned her. “I do actually feel better now.”

 

Sera looked critically at her. “Let’s stop for lunch, yeah?”

 

The dwarf just shook her head. “We’ll make better time if we eat on the road. I don’t want to spend any more of my life in the Exalted Plains than I have to.”

 

“That seems on,” Sera said, but she kept looking worriedly at the woman who had spent the previous three hours unconscious and slung behind her like a saddlebag.

 

Kyren shrugged off the elf’s scrutiny and began to rearrange their packs, handing Sera her bag without commentary on the fact that most of the contents appeared to be her own possessions. Sera looked almost disappointed at her lack of reaction.

 

Kyren stroked her pony’s withers and fed her most of an apple from her pocket before mounting up.

 

“Say boss,” Bull said as they pulled into formation again. “Does that thing have a name?” he jerked one horn towards the pony.

 

“You mean Doomslayer the Second?” Kyren asked wryly. “Well, initially I named her Francine.”

 

“Cole?” Bull asked.

 

“Cole.” She nodded. “Apparently I am still allowed to call her Francine though. It’s like a nickname.”

 

They lapsed into silence for a while, listening to Dorian and Sera’s game of “your people are shite” in front of them. Eventually Bull decided it was time for his own game of “needle Cadash.”

 

“So boss,” he began, “want to talk about it?”

 

“Talk about what,” Kyren asked. She could not keep the tinge of bitterness out of her voice.

 

“You and Sera.” Bull kept his voice low enough that they would not be heard over the noise of creaking wagons and jingling tack behind them, much less the escalating shouting match taking pace up ahead—something about whether or not “teryn” was a real word.

 

“Nothing to talk about.”

 

“’course there is.” Bull had decided after the destruction of Haven that he would no longer play stupid with Cadash. Everyone else, sure. They saw him mostly as who he wanted them to see—a dumb merc who liked to smash things—and they weren’t totally wrong. But they weren’t right, either. And none of them were Cadash. “You like her, she’s nervous, probably told you some crap about wanting to get to know you better and you don’t even know if she rejected you or not.”

 

“Something like that,” Kyren muttered bitterly.

 

Bull chuckled. “You’re not the only person I’ve ever met to come back from the dead, but you might be the only one who was less worried about that than they were talking to a pretty elf.”

 

“Then you didn’t know them very well,” she growled. “Being dead twice over was way easier than this crap.”

 

“So boss,” Bull tried again. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

 

“Do you?” she snapped.

 

Bull raised an eyebrow. Perhaps, well, it had been a long time since it had happened but he _was_ sort of rusty, and perhaps it was possible that he had maybe underestimated Cadash. A little bit. “I mean, Sera has great tits, boss, but I don’t think you have to worry about competition from me.”

 

Kyren looked singularly unimpressed. Bull sighed. He really hated when he promised himself dumb shit like “not playing stupid with Cadash.” “There’s not much to talk about yet, I don’t think.”

 

“Yet,” she repeated. “I like the sound of that. You never sound all hopeful and crap.”

Bull chuckled. “To sound like it, I’d have to _be_ all hopeful and crap.”

 

“Are you not?”

 

“Sky’s shitting demons, boss. Kinda hard to be a giddy schoolgirl while I’m busy watching your back.”

 

Kyren grinned, and the motion stretched her broad lips out over sharp teeth. “I can take care of my own back every once in a while,” she said, “If you need to take some time to… _watch_ his.”

 

The Iron Bull settled his shoulders, something like relief easing him. Wasn’t gonna hurt the mission. Boss said it was okay. He hadn’t even realized he had been worried about it until the anxiety was off him. 

 

They rode until the dimming sky revealed the glow of far-off rifts on the horizon. Finally, Charlie started to gasp for breath under the mountainous weight of his rider, and Kyren called a halt to save the animals.

 

“I’ll catch dinner,” the inquisitor announced, “You lot set up camp.”

 

“We do have a supply wagon, you know. We needn’t be reduced to stabbing our meals like savages,” Dorian called at Cadash’s retreating back.

 

“I have a bow, you know. Goes much further than those puny daggers,” Sera sniffed.

 

Kyren shrugged at Sera and completely ignored Dorian. “I’m actually quiet, though. Besides, you hate hunting.” She vanished into the underbrush before there could be any further conversation on the matter.

 

“How did she know that?” Sera looked almost upset, as if she worried the only dwarf currently in their group had done some sort of mind magic on her.

 

“You didn’t tell her?” Dorian asked.

 

Sera shook her head.

 

Bull said nothing, but he decided silently that he pretty much knew what the lady inquisitor’s old position in the Carta had been.

 

“Struck dumb, are we Bull?” Dorian said.

  
Bull realized he had been silently contemplating for quite a long time. "Just got distracted thinking about how pretty I am. I'm sure you know the feeling." The Iron Bull watched Dorian, who opened his mouth to retort, then flushed that same wine red he had last night as he processed the compliment buried in the joke.

  
It was a nice color, Bull thought. And it's not as if thinking about it could get him deeper in trouble than he already was.

 

“I—Well, I just—let’s just set up camp,” Dorian snapped.

 

“As you command.” Bull bowed at him before he went to drag one of the tents from the supply wagons to an empty patch of clearing where they could properly set it up. Dorian ignored that. Bull had expected him to, but the man was wound up enough as it was. He would be a thing of beauty if he ever snapped. All lilting voice and leather and destruction.

 

Bull would later tell himself that it was the fault of this thought that he had been distracted. Dorian had a different theory. “You great hulking lummox, what have you done?” he asked.

 

Bull felt, rather than heard the dull snap. The pain was an almost comically delayed reaction, and he grunted at the shivering wave of it as the trap’s steel teeth closed about his leg brace. The brace cracked and shattered as though it had been made of sea glass and not dawnstone, but it took the impact of the spring-loaded metal teeth on the front of his calf. He barely kept himself from retching at the thought of the same happening to his other leg’s unprotected bone. Bull smelled his own blood, tangy and metallic and red, as he struggled not to tense his leg, let the jaws rip through muscle and sinew at the back. It would be better that way. Let it have you. It will be better that way. He flexed his hands. His chest and lungs. Open. Close. Open. Close. And breathe and breathe and breathe.

 

“What on earth are you doing over there?” Dorian sauntered over.

 

“Qun thing,” Bull muttered, “clearing the stale humors from my air.” The blood was warm as it trickled down his leg. He concentrated on that. He didn’t look down. It would be so much worse if he looked down. The blood was warm. It had reached his ankle now, would soon be absorbed into the grass. He kept thinking about that. White fuzz appeared around the edges of his vision.

 

Somewhere outside of that, lost in Bull’s imaginary snowstorm, Dorian hadn’t finished talking yet. “…suppose you thought if you stood there long enough the tent pole would grow back but unfortunately…” He drew level with Bull. “Vishante kaffas,” he swore. He appeared to have to concentrate for a moment to remember the common tongue. Once he found it again he used the same even tone of voice he had before discovering Bull’s predicament. “Shit,” he said. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”


	7. Chapter Seven: An Altus and Mercenary Walk into a Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the best solution to a problem is clever and delicate. Other times, it's a hammer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you didn't like the end of last chapter, you probably won't like the whole of this chapter. 
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to my loving girlfriend, who spent over an hour debating with me on the best possible ways to get out of a bear trap.

Dorian was vaguely aware he was panicking.  It was a distant part of his brain, a part that sounded a little like the tuneless, high pitched whistling of Josephine’s tea kettle in the mornings.  An equally distant part of his brain, a part not still stuck in the middle of an endless repetition of the phrase shit shit shit, appeared to have taken over his mouth.  The part of Dorian’s brain that Dorian actually occupied looked on with vague astonishment as his mouth calmly asked Sera to walk over, telling her to be careful of traps in the area. Sera’s stream of piss-bugger-ballshite let him know that he had been obeyed. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look at her if it meant pulling his eyes away from Bull and the bloody mess that was his ankle.

 

The part of Dorian’s brain that was panicking noticed the Iron Bull swaying slightly, his normally steel gray skin turned chalky slate. The sight actually made him think of being seasick as he ran away from Tevinter. He wondered idly when he’d begun to think of Bull as solid ground. “Sera, would you be a dear and disarm that trap, please?” His mouth said. It was a wonder she understood because inside his own head, Dorian had reverted to speaking only Tevene. He could barely process what was being said around him.

                

Sera and Bull appeared to be joking weakly, of all things. “and you blighters all expect me to have some sort of trap-detecting brain whatsit. How the piss am I supposed to do shit like that?” Sera asked. She knelt down next to the trap and began to examine it, her tools cupped loosely in her hands.

 

“Spring’s still squeezing you then, yeah?” she asked.

 

Bull nodded mutely. Dorian wondered at the blankness of his face. Like he was trying not to let the whole thing affect him. Bull’s one glazed eye met both of his, and for a second Dorian saw something there. What it was exactly, he couldn’t say. He knew only that it was hot and tingling and he knew he was not meant to see it in the same way that people said you were not supposed to look one of the Old Gods in the face.  Bull’s eye was the depthless gray-green of the ocean on a stormy day, opaque and swallowing and utterly without mercy. It frightened him. He looked away and immediately felt that he shouldn’t have.

 

“Dorian,” said Bull hoarsely, and that was probably the most terrifying.

 

Dorian opened his mouth but could not make the sounds to reply. He remembered his question to Bull. _Struck dumb, are we?_ It had been just moments ago, certainly. He could measure time by the slow drip of blood from Bull’s pants leg to the hungry earth.

 

Sera stood back up, careful not to jostle Bull as she did, and just as careful to look like she wasn’t trying to do it. “Right,” she said, “So there’s one bit of good news, and two bits of bad news. The good news is, I’ve been stuck in one just like this. I can get it open.”

 

“And the bad news is?” Bull gritted back.

 

“I can get it open. With a hammer.”

 

“Do it.”

 

“Right well you haven’t heard the second bit of bad news,” she said.

 

“We haven’t got a hammer?” Dorian’s mouth seemed to have recovered a bit. This was not supposed to be _his_ emergency, after all.

 

“No, we’ve got one, but the trap’s poisoned, innt it?”

 

“What the fuck kind of backwater savage trap is this, Sera?” Dorian snapped.

 

The elf just shrugged. “Probably for great bears or some other shite least as big as he is.” She jerked her head towards Bull, who was back to swaying again, though with his eye closed this time. “One that got me back then was for darkspawn, people went crazy buying shit like that before the battle of Denerim. This one’s a lot bigger, yeah?”

 

“Heathens,” Dorian hissed. “Well, go on. Get the hammer. I can take care of the poison once he’s out of the trap.” Sera took off at a trot, keeping an eye out for more of the great clawed traps.

 

Bull glanced up at him. “Uh, Dorian, not to sound ungrateful or anything, but do you actually _know_ any healing magic?”

 

Dorian tried to dredge up the words of the explanations without pulling the bile that came with them back into his throat. “I’m not a spirit healer, if that’s what you’re asking. You have to have a natural aptitude for that sort of thing, closing wounds and healing bones, and the healing part of it doesn’t really flow with the manner in which you have to command spirits in necromancy. So I know only the basics of traditional healing spells, wound closures and small blood replacements and such, but…” He took a deep breath. “…but I do know how to take out something bad. I have read every piece of modern research regarding poisons and…” his mouth twisted on the word “ _infections_ of the blood.”

 

He looked up at Bull with as much confidence as any man could borrow from injustice and loss and grief and fury and this time he did not flinch when he met the other man’s eye. “Whatever is hurting inside of you, Bull, I promise you, _I can carve it out_.”

 

Bull nodded, understanding, and Dorian could not remember the last time someone had simply trusted him. It had to be before he left Tevinter, and a long time before he left, at that. Sera chose that moment to return with what turned out to be a heavy mallet.

 

“Right, so we’re gonna sit you down, with your leg sort of sideways, and then we’re just going to pop open the hinges with the mallet thing I got. Except it’ll hurt a whole lot more than it sounds like when I say it like that.” She knelt down and carefully dug up the long spikes that kept the trap embedded in the ground.

 

“We’re gonna move you,” she said, and handed him a strip of leather, Dorian thought it might be gurn hide. “If I were you, I’d fold that up and bite down. When I did this last time, I had to bite my own hand. You don’t want to do that, see?” Sera removed her left hand glove, revealing a pale crescent scar sunk into the meat of her palm.

 

Bull nodded and then with effort managed to unlock his jaw to speak. “All right. I’m ready. Just get it over with.” He put the leather strap in his mouth and allowed Dorian and Sera to guide him to the clearing dirt. Dorian suspected that even with he and Sera using their entire strength, the Iron Bull still had to support a great deal of his own weight to keep from falling down all at once. When they at last had him lowered to the ground, he clutched Dorian’s hand for just a moment before letting go and knotting both fists into the grass.

 

“I don’t know what you’re life’s been like, but doing this to myself was the worst I ever hurt,” warned Sera. She bade Bull close his eyes and then brought the mallet up and back before slamming it against the hinges. The trap came apart with a creaking snap and Bull howled in agony. Dorian put a hand out instinctively, and Bull grabbed it again, crushing his fingers until Dorian could feel each one of his bones pressed against the others, ground tight and creaking. It had bothered him that the phalanges did not each get individual names when he was in anatomy class. Now he was unsure the individual bones would remain.

 

Bull came back to himself in waves, first gaining control of the hand that held Dorian’s, slowly loosening his grip. It actually hurt more now that his blood could flow again, Dorian thought distantly. Bull opened his eye. Finally, finally, he opened his mouth, spitting out the leather he had bitten clean through. “I’ve had worse,” he croaked.

 

Dorian believed him.


	8. Chapter Eight: Only Technically Blood Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian takes the poison out. Bull learns what a Bartrand is.

Scout Harding was no idiot. She had stayed out of the way during the removal process and now brought over an armful of poultices and handed Dorian a pair of forceps before retreating once again. Bull gave her what he hoped was a weak smile. The unflappable scout looked nervous, though he couldn’t tell if it was concern for his pain or that pain’s tendency to make him look extra… well, Qunari-like.

 

For the first time, Bull looked down at his foot. The area around the place where he had felt the impact of the teeth was already stained a sickly yellow from poison where it wasn’t slick with blood, and the fabric of his pants and bits of his leg brace still caught in the furrows where steel jaws had dug in. He was hurt pretty badly, then. 

 

Dorian’s face was an unreadable mask as he cut Bull’s pants away from the injury. “You know,” he remarked, his voice the same as it always was, odd when he was not looking, not smiling. “If you had wanted me to rip these hideous clothes off of you, you need only have asked.”

 

“That so,” Bull grunted as Dorian fished a shard of leg brace out of his ruined flesh. Dorian kept working, his fingers methodical on unshaking hands, and didn’t answer that. A small, bloody pile of dawnstone and leather scraps began to rise on the discarded fabric from Bull’s ruined pants. Bull tried to focus his thoughts on the feeling of Dorian’s hands against his skin and not he haze in his mind he had initially attributed to shock and blood loss.

 

“Are you feeling woozy at all?” Dorian asked him. “I need to ascertain how far the poison had spread.”

 

“A little,” Bull said, trying to calm his thundering heart. It did him no favors now to have exceptional circulation, despite all his reaver training telling him to take the pain, to make it part of himself. He could not draw strength from poison. He could not run with it. 

 

Sera returned to his field of vision, holding a steaming water pot and some rags. He supposed she’d been off heating it, but honestly she could have been standing two feet from the top of his head the whole time and he’d never have noticed her. His world had narrowed to his leg and pain and Dorian. He was somehow still surprised to note that of the three he found Dorian the most distracting.

 

“Sera would you be a dear and fetch Lady Cadash, please?”

 

Sera looked as though she were about to argue with Dorian but thought better of it. She went crashing off into the brush near where the inquisitor had vanished.

 

“You know she’s a city elf,” Bull said, still tasting leather in his teeth.

 

Dorian raised an eyebrow. “Your point?”

 

“She couldn’t track her way out of a nug’s asshole in the forest. No way she finds the boss in under an hour. You should’ve sent Harding.”

 

“I’m counting on it.” He was smiling slightly, although it looked rather stretched. “This is going to take quite some time to get out of you.”

 

“I thought you were a mage, can’t you just…?” Bull made a waving hand gesture that tired him out more than it should have.

 

“I can absolutely do that. So long as you don’t mind me curdling your blood in the process.”

 

“Point taken.”

 

“Okay,” Dorian seemed to be steeling himself. “Okay, you’re going to need to lie very still and ignore essentially everything.”

 

“Will I feel a slight pinch?” Bull asked dryly.

 

“When I did it to myself, it felt more like someone scraping through all of my arteries with a trowel, actually. Felix said it tickled. Take that how you will. I’m not sure it will even be the same sensation for you, since I’m cleansing a mundane poison from your system and not chasing down an incurable magical ailment or trying to get rid of--.” He stopped, frowning. Bull didn’t push him to end the sentence. In fact, if he did so, Bull might vomit.

 

“Is this blood magic?” He hadn’t meant to ask. He didn’t want to know. For all Dorian’s bluster, the guy didn’t bullshit him. He would answer that, and it would be the truth. Bull really hadn’t meant to ask. Not for the first time, he considered the fact that he had been sent from Seheron to Orlais because he was essentially the world’s worst Ben-Hassrath.

 

Dorian’s honey eyes looked sad. “I suppose in the sense that there is both blood and magic involved, yes. But I am not sacrificing either of our blood to power the spell. I am simply cleansing it.” He said it so gently, like he knew Bull was afraid even of small healing magics. Like he understood.

 

“Okay, vint. Lay it on me.” Bull eased himself back, his eye on the clouds above him, now barely visible and tinged with dark pink.  He had been very wrong when he thought not looking would help calm him, but he couldn’t just take it back. Dorian put his hand on Bull’s chest and it was warm there, so small. Bull wanted to put his own over it more than anything else he had wanted since Seheron. He didn’t know what to do with that, and so he pressed his palms into the dirt instead.

 

Somewhere beneath the sky, Dorian began to hum. The sound was mostly tuneless, Bull assumed some sort of focusing chant, and bit by bit it picked up subtle drops and hitches. Bull was not sure Dorian even knew he was doing it. Slowly, so slowly, it felt as though it began to rain. Little cool pinpricking droplets fell and washed over one another inside of Bull’s skin. It took him a moment to even realize it must be the magic, dry as the evening outside his body was. The droplets spread, soothing and tingling from the center of his chest outwards through his flesh. He felt the magic pool in his leg, purifying his wound. He did not dare look down, but he wondered idly if he were glowing. This thought came with a rather latent realization that, despite the magic coursing through his veins, he was not terrified.

 

The sensation of rain faded as easily as a spring thunderstorm passed, and then there was nothing but Dorian’s low hum and his hand against Bull’s breast.

 

Bull reached up to touch it, following an urge to snatch at this moment, to protect it, when he heard a low whistle and a voice behind him rasped, “Well that was a sight, wasn’t it?”

 

Dorian’s head jerked up and his hand snapped back. The humming was gone along with the lingering sense of connection. “H-how long have you been back there?” he asked Cadash. Bull was gratified to note that the mage sounded at least half as out of it as he felt after all that.

 

He tilted his head up, horns catching slightly in the dirt to see Cadash shrug. “The last ten minutes, give or take? I found Sera crashing through the underbrush about half an hour past and we came back. Hope you wanted nug for dinner. She scared off everything bigger than that.” Kyren’s smile was fond, though. Bull supposed it could just be the excuse to murder innocent nugs. The boss hated them more than red templars or rats, and he had a hard time imagining Kyren Cadash far enough gone to find someone charming for their incompetence. Then again, lately there had been some weird shit going on.

 

“I am sure that once we are finished here that will be quite edible,” Dorian said, not taking his eyes off of Bull. Kyren took the hint and made her way back to the main camp, which apparently had been set up a short distance away in their absence.  

 

“How are you feeling?” Dorian asked, his voice scarcely above a whisper.

 

“Better, actually,” Bull told him. He stayed as quiet as Dorian had. He wasn’t sure why they were doing it, but he liked the way hearing his answer required Dorian to lean slightly further over his chest. “Don’t feel like I’m going to pass out any second. Even the leg shit’s a little further away.”

 

“Good.” Dorian smiled. “Bandaging your leg will probably hurt a bit, but I don’t think anything is broken there, so I shouldn’t have to splint it. I believe you will retain use of the leg, barring infection. Lucky you had the leg brace, I suppose.”

 

Bull snorted. “Something like that.”

 

“If I might ask, why do you wear it?”

 

If Bull ever flushed, now would have been the time. “I fucked up my leg stepping on a claw trap in Seheron.”

 

Dorian threw back his head and laughed and Bull found himself smiling ruefully back.

 

Dorian was still chuckling while he reheated the water Sera had brought, this time with magic. Bull was startled to note that he could feel the magic in the air when Dorian did that. Not like the fade snapping static in combat when a battle spell went whizzing by him, but a slight, not unpleasant tug underneath his own skin. Dorian washed the wound and carefully packed poultice into the edges of skin ripped by jagged teeth before winding clean bandages around it. “Can you stand?” He asked.

 

Bull shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

 

The answer was no. Bull could, however, hobble slightly and be supported by a mage who was much stronger than he appeared and the perfect height to use his shoulder for support without either of them hunching too awkwardly. Dorian arranged him carefully by the campfire, brought him his axe without being asked for it, and then sat down nearby. The inquisitor greeted them and then passed around plates of… well, something with nug in it. Bull took a bite. It was greasy, but actually not half bad.

 

“What on earth is that?” Dorian asked, watching his own portion slide around on the plate.

 

Kyren’s chuckle was a bit unkind. “It was a specialty at this dive bar I used to go to in Kirkwall. Over there they called it a Bartrand.”

 

“Varric’s brother? Whatever for?”

 

“It was the cheapest thing on the menu,” she said, “and twice as oily.”

 

Dorian laughed again, and Kyren turned to Bull, her face more serious. “I sent a runner to call Cassandra in, along with Blackwall and Madame Vivienne.”

 

“We’re already a day’s ride out, boss,” Bull protested. “I can—“

 

“If you tell her you can walk, you can handle it, or anything other than you can sit quietly in the wagon and then take care of yourself at Skyhold while your leg heals, I would strongly advise you to shut your mouth before any more stupid dribbles out of it,” Dorian interrupted him.

 

“You’ll be going back with him, of course. In case there are unforeseen complications to being un-poisoned,” Kyren said.

 

“But I… ugh.” To his credit, Dorian closed his own mouth before anyone could make a smart remark about stupid dribbling out. “I acquiesce,” he said. “At least I will be able to take a proper bath.”

 

They ate and cleaned up in the quiet, listening to Sera recount a story about the one and only time she met the hero of Ferelden. “…and then she went running out of the palace district like her knickers were on fire, all red hair and pointy ears and this great bleedin’ tattoo on her face and then she stopped and she turned to me and she said, ‘Here, kid. You want to be queen of Ferelden?’ and she tossed me this bag and kept running with another elf and a half naked witch lady and some sort of freak hornless Qunari tearing after her and I wasn’t stupid so I ran off another way and I opened the bag and it had a pair of her gloves and a bleedin’ _crown_ in it. And that’s the story of how I found out I liked women, basically.”

 

“Do you still have it?”  Dorian asked.

 

Sera scoffed. “’course not. Sent it off to King Alistair so’s he could get coronated, didn’t I? Proper king, that one. Cares about the little people. Not much on his wife, though.”

 

Dorian still looked skeptical, but he didn’t say anything about it.

 

“What about the gloves?” Scout Harding asked.

 

“Still wear ‘em. See?” Sera pulled one of her gloves off and passed them around for inspection. They were fingerless and made of battered drake skin, but the weathered red griffon emblem embossed into the backs was unmistakable.

 

Scout Harding and Dorian brushed the glove with no small amount of veneration. Kyren looked critically at it, turning it this way and that in the firelight. Presumably satisfied that the glove was authentic, she passed it on to Bull and the requisitions officer whose name Bull could never quite catch. Touching the glove, Bull felt something akin to the reverence he had been told Stens had for their weapons. Ben-Hassrath weren’t trained that way, instead used whatever they had on hand, but he supposed he could understand it better now. He gave the glove back, and Sera pulled it back onto her hand.

 

Everyone else cleaned up around him, leaving Bull feeling more than a bit useless but not stupid enough to try asking to help. The light dimmed completely and Scout Harding offered to take first watch before assignments could be doled out. She actually reminded him a little bit of Krem. He wondered if there was anything to that.

 

Bull put that thought away for another time and stood painfully, all his weight on his good leg. He pressed the butt of his axe into the ground, using it as a crutch, and stumped over to the tent he was to share with the inquisitor.

 

“Oh no,” Cadash said, stopping him with a firm hand to his stomach—the highest point on Bull she could comfortably reach. It was only due to years of training and a bum leg that Bull did not jump when she popped out at him that way. She was nearly as bad as Cole.

 

“What?” Bull asked.

 

“You’re not sleeping in there with me.” She looked at him with wide black eyes, her brows raised towards the line of her dark brown hair. “You might compromise my maidenly innocence.”

 

Bull lost the battle with himself and actually snorted. If she had not spent their last trip to the Hinterlands sleeping curled up on his chest like an especially sturdy cat, he might have been more convinced.

 

“I hate to break it to you boss, but there are only two tents for the four of us,” he said. He was starting to cotton on, but he wanted Cadash to have to admit that she had a plan.

 

“So of course I will be sharing with Sera. You can bunk with Dorian.” She smiled and added in an undertone, “With any luck, at least one of us will be able to talk about it.”

 

“You are the worst boss I’ve ever had,” Bull grumbled.

 

“I doubt that,” Kyren said. “Good night.” She waggled her fingers at him before disappearing into what now appeared to be a girl’s only tent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know the shared tent bit is a cheap cliche, but let's be honest, who among us doesn't love a cheap cliche?


	9. Chapter Nine: Mostly Foreseen Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accidents happen. Most of them are instigated by Dorian.

Dorian was already in his bed roll, sitting up and reading on the history of Thaumaturgy by a small reddish mage light when he heard someone enter. “I already told you that you have to announce yourself if you don’t want there to be magic going on when you enter,” he said, not looking up from his book. He could at least finish this page before she demanded that he put the light out.

 

“I don’t mind much,” Bull said, and Dorian jumped so badly he lost his place in the book.

 

“Apologies,” he mumbled, “I was expecting Sera.”

 

“Yeah, and I was expecting to be sleeping with Cadash on top of me but apparently you and I are tent mates now.”

 

Dorian nodded slightly and tried to avoid looking perturbed. Apparently he failed spectacularly at it because Bull continued in a rush, “If you want, that is. If you’d rather not I understand. I can always go see if I can set up with Scout Harding if it makes you uncomfortable.”

 

Dorian gaped at him. “Didn’t you offer to tear my robes off or something a few weeks ago?”

 

“Well, sure, but I was just offering. And you seemed so offended at the time I wasn’t sure if—“

 

Dorian cut him off. He didn’t fully understand why, perhaps he was simply prideful, but he could not bear the idea of the Iron Bull thinking he was afraid of him. “You hardly have the market on discomfort, my good man. I shared with _Blackwall_ on our trip to the Hinterlands. No living creature can snore quite so much as that.” Cadash had actually apologized. Said she would have roomed with him instead but the warden had kissed her unexpectedly and she had just recently let him down.

 

Bull smirked a little and finally entered the tent, ungainly on one leg and the impromptu crutch of his battle axe. “I might bathe more, too.”

 

“Once is indeed greater than never,” Dorian said. “Speaking of filth, let me see your dressing.” He knelt up as much as he could manage in the tent and put more power into his mage light. Bull frowned slightly.

 

“I can put it out once you’re looked at,” Dorian said. He was normally a bit more bothered by Southern reticence towards magic, but he reasoned Bull had probably dealt with more than his fair share of it for the night.

 

“It’s not that, it’s just…” Bull frowned again. “Can you make another one?”

 

“If you wish,” Dorian said, completely nonplussed. He waved a hand through the air and pulled up a bluish ball of light. He supposed he didn’t need the hand, but he liked the look of it, and he had learned in the South that people were more comfortable with magic when they could attribute it to a physical cause.

 

“Yeah, there it is again.”

 

“There what is?” Dorian asked.

 

Bull paused a moment, likely deciding whether or not to lie to him. “There’s this feeling I’ve been getting,” he said. “The past couple of times you’ve done magic.”

 

“Apprehension?” Dorian suggested. It wasn’t his favorite answer, but he _was_ a mage from Tevinter. Bull could only be expected to put up with that for so much longer.

 

“No, not like that. Like, a physical sensation. In response to your spellcasting. It’s happened the past couple times since you cleared out all the poison and shit”

 

Dorian looked at him blankly. The cleansing procedure was, for lack of a better term, probably the most _intimate_ form of magic he knew, but he had scoffed at Felix when he mentioned strange after effects, and he had never thought such a subtle ritual would leave any impression at all on someone who wasn’t even a mage. He didn’t know how to gauge his own reaction. He had spent most of the following days sobbing under a heap of alcohol and blankets. “Hang on,” he said.

 

Dorian stood and went outside the tent, closing the flap behind him. Some sort of psychosomatic impulse, he thought. It had to be. A twitch born of the strange intimacy and Bull’s repressed fear of magic. He took a few steps away. “Can you see me?” He asked.

 

“Nope,” Bull answered.

 

“Can you hear me breathing or any nonsense like that?” Qunari had a sharper sense of smell than humans did, he knew. He had no idea if such strengths carried on to the other senses.

 

“Not from that far away,” Bull told him.

 

Dorian mentally resolved to parse that response at a later date. He drew on his magic, careful not to move his hands or allow his breathing to hitch, just in case Bull had been lying. He focused mentally, simply lifting a log from the pile of dry wood next to their fire pit.

 

“Felt that,” Bull called. Dorian cast a flickering barrier over the fire pit. “That too,” Bull said. He allowed all his magics to go out with a sort of frustrated tch noise.

 

“Huh,” Bull said as Dorian clambered back into the tent. “I can’t feel it when you release them. I mean I know you did it because I heard clunking and shit and all your lights in here went out, but I didn’t feel it.”

 

Dorian tried to parse out the guilt from the parts of him that felt frustrated and helpless and found that those parts were mostly just guilt in another clever disguise. He buried the frustration, along with his pride. This was more important. “I cannot begin to apologize, Bull,” he said. “I had no idea it would…mark you like that. If I had known, I would have at least asked.”

 

Bull chuckled, sounding surprisingly at ease for someone who had just been permanently(?) altered by some sort of wonky healing magic. “Don’t worry about it. I mean, I would have died, right? You and Sera acted all calm and shit but I would have died if you hadn’t.”

 

“I… I’m not sure,” Dorian said truthfully. Some part of him knew he could not lie to Bull, even if it made it easier. Not after last night. Not after this. “If you were human, most likely. As a Qunari, I don’t….”

 

“Yes,” Bull said simply. “I mean, we can wear vitaar and stuff once it dries, but when things get into our bloodstream and shit... It’s kind of like dwarves and lyrium, I guess. We’re only immune on the outside.”

 

“Still, I’m sorry.”

 

“I’ll take weird magic side effect over death any day, ‘vint. Nothing to be sorry about.”

 

“Were you this fucking cheerful and reassuring with Krem after they gouged your eye out?” Dorian snapped. So much for burying the frustration.

 

“Worse,” Bull said wickedly. “I made him breakfast the next day.”

 

Dorian did not need to conjure another light source to envision Bull’s shit-eating grin. “Just go to sleep,” he grumbled.

 

“But I haven’t gotten my good night kiss,” Bull whined.

 

Dorian was not as restrained a man as Bull apparently was at the best of times, and the road and the ritual and the side effects and _Bull_ were grating on him. He had not better explanation to himself for why, without thinking, without questioning a single one of his own motivations, he swung around in his bed roll and planted a kiss full on Bull’s very surprised lips.

 

His mouth was gone almost as soon as it had landed and he snapped “ _Good night,”_ at Bull in a tone that brokered no arguments.

 

They stayed awake for a long time after that, Dorian trying to ignore the regret and embarrassment that pulsed through him at intervals. Bull, when Dorian finally got the nerve to look, had two fingers pressed gently to his own mouth, a small smile tugging at his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I never meant for this to be one of those "weird magical bond" fics, but it happened. I probably won't do much with it plot-wise, to be honest. Also yay sort of almost kissing!


	10. Chapter Ten: It Is What It Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody talks, and there's a wooden duck. (All Qunlat, etc. translated in the notes at the end.)

Nobody talked in camp the next morning. Well, nobody except Scout Harding. The tiny dwarf woman kept up a cheerful monologue that proved her either oblivious to her companions’ tension, or completely impervious to it.

 

Sera and Cadash were experiencing tension of their own, but theirs seemed a more pleasant variety. Heady anticipation rather than… whatever Dorian had going on in his head. Bull glanced up at the mage, who had stormed out of their tent that morning before Bull had a chance to speak with him and was now practicing forms with his staff, gradually reducing the great oak at the edge of their campsite to cinders and ash. 

 

Bull was surprised at how quickly he’d gotten used to the odd magical tug of Dorian’s spellcasting. He had told the other man the truth when he said it didn’t bother him. At least, the feeling didn’t bother Bull any more than his bum knee aching before the rain or the way his own smiles tended to tug at the scar tissue of his ruined eye socket. He could shrug that crap off. He was alive, wasn’t he? And that was what mattered.

 

That said, there was something very… distracting about the knowledge that Dorian was out there, casting spells. Using magic.

 

The object of Bull’s musings finished off the poor tree with a deafening blast, then crossed his legs on the ground and sat, trying to focus. It was clear from the weedy vines that sprung from the ground that Dorian was attempting to do some sort of keeper magic. It was equally obvious that Dorian sucked at keeper magic. Dorian seemed to come to the same conclusion, and he snarled and reduced the tangle of vines to ash.

 

Bull often thinks about Dorian doing magic. It seems to be the only part of himself that Dorian isn’t ashamed of. Magic looks good on him. An odd thought to have, for a Qunari, but here he is.

 

Plus, it didn’t matter what Bull thought about Dorian’s looks just then, because Dorian was pissed at him. Bull couldn’t be totally sure why that was the case, given that Dorian was the one who kissed _him_ , but he supposed he had goaded the poor guy into it. He couldn’t make himself feel guilty about it, though. Not when it served his purposes so effectively. Dorian shot him a thunderous glare as he formed a small tornado with the heap of powdery-white ash.

 

Bull simply smiled at him, letting some of the warmth and hunger he normally tried to suppress suffuse his features. Dorian abruptly lost control of the spinning column of ash and found himself coated from knees to face.

 

Yeah, Bull thought as Dorian stomped off in search of a stream big enough for bathing. In retrospect, that probably just pissed him off more.

 

Bull spent the rest of the morning working on his shitty whittling project. He had wanted to try making a dragon, but Blackwall had suggested he start with something simpler first.

 

_“A duck,” Cole had said, emerging from someplace high in the rafters._

_“A duck?” Bull echoed._

_“Birds_ are _some of the easiest forms when you start out wood carving,” Blackwall said._

_Cole shrugged. “He likes ducks,” was the only response Bull got before the spirit boy vanished._

Bull cut his thumb twice on the slippery whitewood Blackwall had provided. He hoped that put him even with the universe in some way.

 

Dorian returned before he had finished, and apparently seeing the mage tramp by with damp hair and no makeup on yet was sufficient cause for Bull to add a third cut to the first two. He had his abused thumb partway to his mouth before he gazed abstractedly at the duck and pressed his cut to each of the freshly finished wing tips. It was still a shitty duck, but now it looked kind of bad ass. Bull smiled, satisfied, and placed the duck back in his pocket. He moved on to sharpening his axe and taking care of his remaining armor. He supposed he would have to get Dagna or someone to forge him a new leg brace. Perhaps she would humor him and make it pink.

 

He supposed a still morning in camp was the perfect time to write a report for the Ben-Hassrath, but he didn’t quite know what he’d say in it.

 

_Got possible Tevinter spy drunk. Put him to bed safely instead of pumping him for information. Went on mission with possible Tevinter spy and definite Carta spymaster. Got stuck in trap like a dumbass. Was rescued from probable death by the Tevinter and deranged basalit-an. Developed freak soul-bond connection with possible Tevinter spy. Was subsequently kissed by him. He has soft lips and he smells like cinnamon. We will have to work a little more on timing._

_Anaan Essam Qun, I guess,_

 

_Hissrad_

Dorian stomped out of the tent and flopped down in a patch of sun with his book. Before Kyren and Harding finished cooking lunch—nug kebabs, this time—Bull had come up with an appropriate missive to send.

 

_Asit tal-eb_ , it said. The shortest report he had ever written. He didn’t even bother signing it. After all, there were no names under the Qun.

 

They had a savagely quiet lunch and then Bull spent the next few hours mending and polishing and generally trying to look like he wasn’t staring at Dorian.

 

If Dorian had happened to settle down in front of him, that was a coincidence. After all, it wasn’t as if Bull had arranged himself right next to the best light to read by on purpose. 

 

They stayed that way until the sun rose high in the sky and the rustle of hooves signaled Cassandra’s arrival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of the Qunlat is super-duper plot relevant, and a lot is pretty common in canon/fanon but I hate not having translations when I read fanfic so here it is just in case:
> 
> basalit-an-- an outsider worthy of the highest level of respect
> 
> Anaan Essam Qun-- Victory is in the Qun
> 
> Asit tal-eb-- it is what it is (idiomatic. literally, "it is to be")


	11. Chapter Eleven: It Is but It Isn’t

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian is a terrible disappointment to a great many people. Most of them are him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Memorial Day, I'm going to hell.  
> Mind the new rating, kids!

Dorian really needed to get ahold of himself. He had tried venting his spleen on a perfectly innocent tree that had likely spent the last thirty years or so growing and changing color, offering no offense to anyone, and he had gone and reduced the poor thing to ash. He had studied primarily ice magic in Minrathous, because it was seen as the most elegant, refined solution, but fire had always been his element. His father had hoped for better, for more poise and control, and Dorian had worked hard to become a natural.

 

But his father wasn’t here, and today he didn’t feel like doing ice magic.  He called lighting from the sky to blast away the charred remnants of the stump. Savage, unrefined, like hitting a gnat with an anvil, his father had said of lightning magic—Dorian’s second favorite.  Fuck his father, anyways. This whole tangled mess was his fault, somehow, he was sure of it.

 

Except it wasn’t. It was Dorian’s fault, had always been Dorian’s fault because he could not get a grip on his emotions. Maybe if he had the personal restraint that generally came with the raw force of will required to work necromancy and spirit magic, he would not be here now. Maybe, he would have been able to stay in Tevinter, unhappily married but at least doing some good for someone. At least one tree would still be here.

 

Perhaps he could learn to control himself. He sat down in the dirt and tried to recall his readings on keeper magic. They were slim, but he and Solas had also talked about it. Vines were simple, but required an iron will and focus. He could do that.

 

He called on his magic, sending tendrils of it into the earth, bringing life back, but everything he managed to call up was dark, weak and twisted and unhealthy looking snarled in the midmorning sunlight. He burned that, too.

 

He supposed, he thought irritably, that if the Qunari ever won what he had called a “barely eye-watering slap fight” to the face of a veteran, they could just strap him to the front of a dreadnaught and have done with it. Qunari loved killing people with fire magic. It couldn’t be much more frightfully dull and confining than a Magister’s seat in Minrathous, at any rate.  He did, however, have a tendency to get dreadfully sea-sick. He would have to work on that.

 

Air magic was not even considered its own school in Tevinter. It was lumped in with the other sorts of “savage, primal magic” that Dorian had long since discovered made Southern apostates like Solas dangerous. It fascinated him.

 

He tore a strip from a passing breeze and used his power to strengthen it, goading it into tighter and tighter circles as it picked up bits of ash, and then Bull just had to go and _look_ at him like that. The column he had been building shuddered, and then went everywhere as the wind he had been leashing took its chance to escape.

 

Dorian felt himself get coated in a cloud of ash and it was still two long heartbeats before he could look away because Bull’s smile, the lingering, hungry authority in his eye, the still-healing wound under his eyepatch, well… Bull looked at him as though he had no doubt in the world he could tear off his robes and fuck him to the mattress. And Dorian, if he were being honest with himself, liked it in the same way he loved fire magic.

 

He rushed off to bathe, trying his best to look like he wasn’t bolting.

 

He became extremely aware as he marched to the stream that he had a situation to deal with. All the same, he was not some sort of gawky apprentice and he refused—absolutely refused to acknowledge his current _situation_ until more pressing matters had been dealt with. So it was that he carefully arranged his washcloth, his soaps, a change of clothes, and the cloth he intended to dry himself with on the banks of the stream and carefully removed his filthy clothing, attention paid to each buckle and strap, without so much as palming his throbbing erection.

 

Oh, he _thought_ about it of course, but he was _busy,_ quite frankly, and some part of him, despite being well aware that he was alone in the woods, did not want to give the Iron Bull that kind of satisfaction. A smaller, more unacknowledged part of him liked the ache of anticipation. He wanted to be desperate for it before he even began.

 

Dorian waded into the water, chilling himself and causing a brief drop in his distraction. The pool he had chosen rose roughly as high as his navel, though the stream flowed so slowly, so gently through the area that he could see clear to the bottom. Dorian glanced down at his toes, at his rapidly re-hardening dick, and sighed.

 

He dragged his own fingers, purely by accident, of course, across his chest and reveled in the cool streaks they left there, the way his nipple was sensitive to the brush and the tension. He washed his hair and body. As quickly as possible.

 

He gave up his dirty clothes for a loss and dunked them in, too. He tried not to think about the fact that the mess of wet ash he was trying to scrub away was the exact hue of Bull’s skin.

 

But why shouldn’t he think about it? It wasn’t as though he was going to act on his desires—no more than he already had, at any rate. If the man was going to be so damned inscrutable and hungry and primitive, Dorian thought he at least had the right to get off on it.

 

He closed his eyes and then Bull was there with him, fixing him with that same lustful, domineering smile that had caused him to rush off in the first place. His hands slid below the water line, but he did not press them into his cock, not yet. He stayed still, rubbing his thumbs in small circles on his thighs, slowly building his arousal. He kept circling, closer and closer but never quite touching. Because he was waiting for it. Because he had to earn it.

 

 _Touch yourself,_ the phantom Bull said, and Dorian obeyed. His fingers wrapped loosely around hard flesh while the other hand came back up, hooking digits into his mouth. In his head, the fingers there belonged to the Iron Bull, and the thought made him lap at them, moaning.

 

It was easier for him to moan by himself, when he did not have to worry about being caught out or his partner’s judgement. After all, he was only having sex in his head, and in his head the Bull liked noises like that, throaty and dirty and full of pleasure and shame.

 

The hand around his cock, his left, started to move in earnest, and Dorian discovered that doing this under the water chafed horribly, restricting him to a slow, burning rhythm. The Bull in his head chuckled at the predicament Dorian had put himself in.

 

 _My sweet boy,_ he said, still smiling, _always making it harder._

 

Dorian whimpered.

 

He stroked himself fast, as fast as he dared. His finger and thumb making a corkscrewing motion around his shaft. It took so blessedly, painfully long for him to finally be ready. And still there was something left. He reached for the shuddering, quivering light and--

 

 _Not yet,_ Bull growled, and the words held his orgasm back like a physical force.

 

He dropped to his knees right there, the stream moving slowly on around him as the water rose up past his shoulder blades. He could feel the nails of his/Bull’s hand as the fingers jerked his mouth this way and that in time with his pitiful thrusts.

 

“ _Please,”_ Dorian gasped, and he was so far gone, so lost in the rutting and the need, that it did not even occur to him to be ashamed. He merely knelt there, alone in the woods, pleading for release around the fingers of his own hand. “ _Please,”_ Dorian begged again.

 

Bull nodded, and Dorian came moaning into his own hand. Jerking himself through orgasm and aftershocks as the pleasure became too much, too sharp, and the world twisted back upright on its axis even as he willed the blessed light and emptiness to linger.

 

 _Good boy,_ his vision said, and then Dorian was alone again.


	12. Chapter Twelve: And Now All These Fucking Unicorns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we all find out some facts about Cassandra

It was not, the Bull decided, that Dorian was bad at subtlety. It was that he seemed to have given up on the practice of it.  He was used to getting furtive sidelong glances from the mage that he may genuinely not have caught had his years as a Ben-Hassrath not made him certain everyone was _always_ looking at him. What he was not used to was Dorian’s eyes boring a hole into the side of his head and then the other man looking away somewhat less-than-quickly when he was caught.  Cassandra made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat, but it was possible that was just ingrained habit at this point.

 

It was also possible that he was heavier than the seeker had anticipated. The woman was supporting most of his weight in an attempt to get him onto the small wagon she had brought with herself, Blackwall, and Vivienne. “I can really—“ he began.

 

“No.” She said.

 

“Have I mentioned how much I like women in command?” Bull asked.

 

“Not nearly as many times as I have told you my distaste for lecherous mercenary captains,” Cassandra answered, but there was no bite to it. “Speaking of lechery,” she added in a much lower voice, “what exactly did you do to Dorian?” She heaved him onto the wagon and made a show of checking he was secure within.

 

“Nothing!” Bull insisted in the same almost-whisper. “Now, if you want to talk about what I’ve _imagined_ doing to him…”

 

Cassandra made that noise again. “He is upset. And he is my… colleague. I would appreciate knowing what is bothering him.”

 

“You know, Seeker, you are allowed to have friends.”

 

“Yes, well then, Dorian is my _friend_ ,” she looked like the words physically pained her, “and I would appreciate knowing what is going on with him.”

 

“Have you tried asking Dorian?” Bull asked mildly.

 

Cassandra looked startled. “Is that… permitted?” she asked.

 

Bull shrugged. “Well, you are friends.”

 

Her eyes narrowed. “You do not even know what you have done to offend him.”

 

“No idea, Seeker. Let me know if you find out.”

 

“Have you _asked_ him?”

 

Bull had not realized until that moment that he in fact hadn’t. He looked over at Dorian, who was about twenty feet away and studiously looking at whatever accessory Vivienne was trying to show him. “I… well,” he said, “well.” He cleared his throat. Chuckled a little. “Well, we _are_ friends. Or were.”

 

“Whatever you did to him, you will make it right,” Cassandra said. “Or I will stab you in the eye again.”

 

“Hey, easy Seeker,” Bull protested, keeping his voice low. “ _He_ kissed _me._ ”

 

“He _what?”_ The Seeker squawked, and everyone from Dorian to Blackwall looked up at that.

 

It occurred to Bull that, despite his increasingly vulgar propositions, he had never really seen Dorian blush in public before. He only got uncomfortable, the Bull realized, when he had to be involved in the banter himself. So the problem, then, wasn’t the acts, or interest in him, it was Dorian’s own interest that humiliated him.

 

Well, it wasn’t ideal, but Bull could work with that. Cassandra was blushing too but that was more expected.

 

“…I—I refuse to believe that Krem is physically capable of such debauchery!” Cassandra covered awkwardly. Every person within earshot knew it was a lie, but it also got across a rather strong message not to ask about it. No one wanted to call the lady Seeker a liar, after all.  Dorian looked slightly less mauve, Cassandra gave him a curt nod before she hopped off the cart to mount her horse, Vivienne raised an elegantly plucked eyebrow before returning to her conversation and that was that.

 

Except he was settled in the cart now and Dorian still kept looking at him.

 

Everyone said their goodbyes, then. The group that was actually going to make it to the Exalted Plains would likely be out for a few weeks. Bull received one final lecture from Vivienne—as though he wouldn’t have stepped on a trap had he just gotten his posture right. He quietly showed Blackwall his shitty, blood-covered duck and Blackwall returned it to him with gruff words of encouragement. The inquisitor smiled at him and told him that they would talk when she got back, her eyes laden with meaning. Sera simply gave him an artistic rendering she titled “Quizzie’s tits. Probably. Not like I’ve ever seen ‘em.” To keep him company on the ride back. Bull considered that the drawing might technically be a religious effigy and resolved to burn it at the next opportunity. Just to see what would happen.

 

They pulled out, making for a trail marker about a third of the way back to Skyhold where they could set up camp for the night. The wagon required two animals to haul it, and so Dorian was forced to ride inside with Bull while Cassandra rode ahead. He spent the first hour or so deeply engrossed in his book, but then apparently finished it. He spent what the Bull clocked as roughly fourteen minutes afterwards looking viciously around the uncovered wagon as though he was about to discover the next installment of Varric’s romance serial etched into the wood grain.

 

Bull was a patient man but this kind of silent feelings bullshit made him antsy. “You gonna tell me what crawled up your ass this morning, ‘vint?”

 

Dorian had the audacity to look offended. “My ass is quite uninhabited at the moment, thank you.”

 

“See, I’d offer to help you with that, but I’m pretty sure something I said along those lines is what got you all bunched up in the first place,” Bull said.

 

“Quite right,” he sniffed.

 

“I can stop forever if you want me to,” Bull offered, pleased when his words were met with Dorian’s small, hurt intake of breath.

 

“That would be…” Dorian gathered his thoughts. “…surprising, if you could actually manage it. I mean, great huffing beast like you, lumbering around all day next to this vision of perfection. Lack of restraint. It’s bound to happen.”

 

Bull bit back a lecherous comment about his ability to rectify the “lack of restraints” situation and instead nodded solemnly. “It does get distracting, spending all your time around a pretty ‘vint.”

 

Dorian smacked his arm.

 

“Careful,” Bull warned, “That’s about the only part of me left I haven’t injured.”

 

“Why do you have to say it like that?” Dorian snapped.

 

“Say it like what?”

 

Dorian reddened and didn’t answer.

 

“Shit,” Cassandra said, pulling up her horse in front of them. Bull and Dorian sat up and looked out as the wagon ground to a stop.

 

“Andraste’s tepid bathwater,” Dorian breathed. Bull just stared.

 

In front of them, entirely blocking the cart path and much of the forest that surrounded it, was a herd of roughly twenty unicorns. They were taller than most of the regular horses Bull had encountered since leaving Par Vollen. Of a height with his own war horse, but more slender. Each carried a pearlescent horn that extended from their foreheads like a chevalier’s lance.

 

“Their horns are not so delicate as they appear,” warned Cassandra. “Legend has it that they can pierce dragon bone.”

 

“Are these even fucking real?” Bull asked, “Like, sword horses are just legends to the Qunari.”

 

“It is not shocking that you do not have any in Par Vollen,” Cassandra told him, eyeing the herd warily. “They are drawn to ambient magic in the atmosphere. Places in the wild where the veil is thin. They are rare even in Nevarra.”

 

“Interesting,” Dorian commented. “We breed them in Tevinter, but there their coats are almost always white. In their natural habitat they appear to exhibit the same range in coloration that is present in horses, although some scholars posit they are actually closer to Halla in origin, despite their appearance.”

 

“Is nothing sacred to you people?” Cassandra asked, disgusted.

 

“Not particularly, my dear.”

 

The unicorns minced closer, sniffing at Charlie and Princess hitched to the cart. Cassandra put herself between the creature and her own horse, a bay mare she had borrowed from requisitions.

 

One unicorn in particular, a fine-boned black creature, lifted its head over the low edge of the wagon. “Hey there, little guy,” Bull murmured, reaching out a hand to the creature. He felt the tug that said Dorian was doing magic just as Cassandra barked, “Bull, don’t!”

 

It was too late for Cassandra’s warning but just in time for the barrier spell. The creature screamed and launched itself at Bull, its collarbones bashing against the fragile little cart. Bull and Dorian both threw themselves flat as the horn knocked against the blue-green light of the barrier.

 

“Holy shit,” Bull yelled, unable to hear himself over the bellows of panicked unicorns, “What did I do?”

 

“Nearly every barmaid and serving boy from here to Minrathous, apparently,” Dorian snapped, chancing a glance over the cart edge. He ducked back before he could be side-swiped by an errant horn. “The whole herd is getting quite agitated,” he muttered.

 

“Cass,” Bull called. “Are you okay over there? I don’t wanna kill these things if I don’t have to, but…”

 

“I am fine, Bull,” Cassandra said. And strangely she did sound rather calm. At peace, more than her quiet battle fury. “and neither of you will ever tell Varric about any of this.”

 

Bull ducked upwards, his own horns at an angle in the hopes of catching anything before it gouged him. Cassandra walked purposefully up to the black unicorn, her weapon not even drawn, and placed a hand on its flank. “Easy there,” she said. The creature calmed instantly. It actually turned and nuzzled her hand.

 

She moved among its fellows. A gentle hand here, a soft word there, until she had gently coaxed them into not only calming down but also clearing the track.

 

“Are you a blood mage,” Bull asked bluntly.

 

“No,” Cassandra said, her cheeks heating. She gathered the reins of her horse and the two mounts pulling the cart, tugging them through the cleared path.

 

“Horse whisperer,” he tried.

 

“No.”

The black unicorn followed Cassandra, sniffing at her armor and nipping at her belt pouch. She turned to face it, speaking in the firm voice she used for command. “If you wish, you may accompany us to Skyhold. I have a spirit friend who I think would like you very much. And if you do not like him… well, I will then simply have to wash my skull out with lye.”

 

Dorian started to snicker, then to laugh. Bull did not think it was possible for Cassandra to go any redder. He was definitely missing something.

 

He reached a hand outside the cart, just to test. The creature snapped at it.

 

“Are you going to explain it to him, Cassandra?” Dorian asked, “Or must I?”

 

“I would hardly deny you the joy,” she gritted.

 

“Unicorns,” Dorian said, sounding gleefully pedantic, “are legendarily opposed to anyone who is not,” he let out a polite little cough, “ _pure of body_ ”

 

Bull gave him a blank look.

 

“He means not virgins,” Cassandra interjected.

 

“Ah.” Bull tried not to laugh, he really did. It was one of a great many times in his life that he ultimately failed at a task he put his mind to. Then again, he didn’t try but so hard.

 

Dorian laughed with him, wiping tears from the edges of his eyes. He managed to keep his kohl immaculate, and Bull wondered how that had become such a skill for him. Wondered, with a sudden, frightful hunger whether unicorns were kind to him. If Dorian was happy about it.

 

He ached to touch Dorian then, but didn’t. Instead he turned, asked a question. “Cassandra? Didn’t you have someone? You know, before the conclave?”

 

“Regalyan and I were… busy people,” the seeker answered stiltedly. “and there was just never a time that seemed… fully right. I… the urge does not overtake me often. It was only with Regalyan that such urges overtook me at all.”

 

Dorian nodded as though he had deep sympathy. Bull shrugged. He’d heard of weirder shit.

 

“D’you feel that way, too, Dorian?” he asked. He meant to play it off as a joke, but part of him, the part he chose not to examine too closely, had to know.

 

“I would think my continued conversations with brutes like you would prove that I have significantly lower standards than our lady Seeker.” An answer and an admission. It was more than Bull had hoped for. It wasn’t nearly enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Demisexual Cassandra Pentaghast is my shit.


	13. Chapter Thirteen: The Glorious Scars of the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A question someone wants an answer to. Another someone doesn't.

Cassandra refused to let Dorian help stand watch, despite the fact that he was not the one who was injured. If she were even the least bit less painfully and abrasively honest, he would have accused her of manipulating the situation. As it was, she was off in the woods somewhere and he was curled around his own knees in the wagon, facing Bull in the rapidly deepening starlight. Their bedrolls were already out. They were under the lady seeker’s protection, as well as the tolerably good graces of a tremendously violent unicorn. They should just go to sleep.

 

“I can put a light on,” Dorian said awkwardly.

 

Bull grunted his assent, and Dorian conjured a string of tiny bobbing mage lights that danced around his fingertips before he flicked them away to hover in midair. Showoff, he chastised himself. Only a tiny twitch of Bull’s scarred mouth gave away the pull he felt at Dorian’s use of magic. The movement looked… pleased somehow, though, and Dorian took that to heart.

 

“Bull, can I ask you something?”

 

Bull looked at him sharply, his eye narrowing in either amusement or suspicion. “I’ll ask you something back,” he warned.

 

Dorian waved a dismissive hand. Bull was going to do that anyways. It didn’t mean he had to answer. “Are you… proud of your scars?” He hadn’t meant it to sound so hesitant. It was hardly a sensitive subject with the warrior. He didn’t even know why he was asking when he already knew the answer.

 

Bull frowned thoughtfully before he huffed a laugh and murmured, “Ataas shokra.”

 

“In a language we both speak, if you please?”

 

Bull bit his lip and Dorian half expected him to expound on his statement in fluent Tevene. Instead he met the mage’s eye and said, “There is glory in struggle. That’s what it means. Or at least it’s a pretty close translation.”

 

Dorian wasn’t sure whether to probe him for more or remain silent. Bull answered the question for him, continuing. “Some scars are a price you pay for something, I guess. Like my eye for Krem. Others help you remember what you’re fighting for.” He shrugged gray shoulders like an avalanche. Dorian fancied he could feel himself plummet.

 

“What about this one, then? I got it sharpening the blade on my staff. Hardly a worthy accomplishment.” Dorian held out his left hand, a pale raised triangle stark on the heel of his palm. He had been alone in Redcliffe. It was the first time he had ever realized that, as a Magister’s son, he had never before had to care for his own weapons and really had no idea how to go about it.

 

Bull chuckled. The sound was becoming familiar to him, Dorian thought with a pang. “Sure,” he said easily, “but did you learn something?”

 

Dorian thought back. He had kept going, after the cut. The whetstone covered in blood from his freely oozing hand, he had sharpened the blade at last, nearly slicing off his fingers when the stone next slipped. But he had done it on his own. He hadn’t needed another soul’s help. Particularly not his father’s. “I learned how to hold a whetstone,” he said at last.

 

When he smiled at him again, Dorian got the feeling that Bull knew why it had been an accomplishment. The feeling was warm. It unsettled him. “What lesson did you learn from this one?” He asked sarcastically, gesturing vaguely to Bull’s bandaged leg.

 

“That one is more of a price paid, I think.”

 

“For what?”

 

Bull leaned forwards and Dorian held his breath, certain for one terrifying moment that Bull was about to open his mouth and say precisely the thing Dorian wished more than anything he would say. Then, Bull looked at him with that one horribly compassionate eye and said something Dorian was ready to hear, instead.

 

“For forgetting not to step in traps,” he answered.

 

Time passed before Dorian was able to speak. He clocked it in the sound of Bull’s breaths, the noise of his own strangely absent. He was still alive, so he must still be taking them, but beyond the logic of the situation he had no proof of his own exhalations.

 

“Okay,” Bull said when he reached breath fifteen, “I’m gonna go ahead and ask you my question. You don’t have to answer but you aren’t allowed to bullshit me.”

 

I kissed you because you asked me to, Dorian thought, and also because I was extraordinarily agitated. It was the truth, technically. He nodded, prepared, but that was not the Bull’s question.

 

“Why’d you learn all that blood cleansing crap?”

 

“I—“ Dorian swallowed the flippant answer. It felt wrong on the way down, like cheese left out for hours in the sun. He was surprised he could still do it. Thought that was something else Tevinter had permanently hollowed out of him. He shaped his mouth around the part of the truth that felt safe. “For the most part, to save Felix.”

 

“But not all.”

 

Damn him. Damn insightful men. Damn the entire force of the Ben-Hassrath.

 

“No,” Dorian said.

 

“The rest was for you,” Bull said. It wasn’t a question. He looked sick.

 

Dorian nodded. He could not remember a time outside getting caught in the trap when Bull’s face had done something other than smiling.

 

“You tried to…” Bull didn’t seem able to finish.

 

“Alter myself, yes. Long before my father ever did.” The words came unstuck a little easier now that he was confirming the truth instead of revealing a secret. “It was the only thing that convinced me I was not an aberration, you know. That I couldn’t be cured outside of blood magic.” He’d still try, every now and then. It was blistering agony every time, but sometimes, when he was uncertain that he had not irrevocably sinned, he tried to fix it and took comfort in it. Affirmation and penance.

 

“ _Cured,”_ the Bull spat. He had not moved an inch, but Dorian had never seen a fury so violent. He could not even bring himself to shrink back. “When this is over, ‘vint, you and I are gonna go back to your shithole homeland. We’re gonna bring Krem and Skinner and the rest of the chargers and we are gonna tear that country apart brick by fucking brick. Maybe we’ll put a park in to replace it. Somewhere nice for little kids to play in and not get their heads fucked at.”

 

He meant it, Dorian realized. It was perhaps not the most typical expression of caring, but it was also not every day you met someone who was willing to level a country with their bare hands without you even having to ask it of them. “Well,” he said stiltedly, “perhaps first we should finish our work here. Need to prevent the end of the world in order to have a Tevinter to fix, you know.”

 

“Yeah,” Bull flexed his hands, visibly calming now, “Yeah. I just… I’m sorry, Dorian. I’m so sorry. Shit.” He scrubbed at his head with a hand, in the place he said his horns always itched.

 

“I am too,” Dorian said, and he didn’t quite understand his own meaning but he knew that he meant it.

 

“Ataas shokra, assala ataas,” Bull murmured, looking right at him.

 

Dorian opened his mouth and Bull talked over him. “You don’t want me to explain that,” he said. “Not yet.”

 

Then Bull leaned over and kissed Dorian on the cheek—the cheek. Dorian's brain stuttered over the action. People did not kiss him on the cheek. They kissed him on the mouth, the throat, the thighs. Places they could bite later. Places they could claim for their own. Never on the cheek. He shuddered with the vile intimacy of the gesture. The affection. By the time he recovered enough to look up, Bull was wriggling into his bedroll.

 

“Good night, Dorian,” was all he said.

 

“Good night, Bull,” Dorian stammered back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ataas shokra, assala ataas-- A glorious struggle creates a glorious soul
> 
> I am trash.


	14. Chapter Fourteen: Lucky Coincidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The unicorn gets a name. Dorian gets a present.

Cassandra interrogated Dorian about his feelings for the entire half day ride back to Skyhold.  Bull sat in the back of the wagon, pretending not to listen and making a strange sort of game out of baiting the unicorn. He had discovered he could come to just within horn’s range of the thing without causing agitation, but any further and it would take a swipe at him. Cassandra had named it Guingalet, after the legendary charger of one of the Nevarran dragon hunters of old.

 

“Of all the names you could have chosen,” Dorian snickered, “you selected the one horse who was famed for _not_ being faithful to his rider.”

 

“That is the point,” said Cassandra. “He did not heed Gawain’s guidance when it conflicted with what he knew to be true. He had faith in his own direction and did not falter.”

 

Dorian shrugged, but was quiet about Cassandra’s naming proclivities after that.

 

When the subject returned to Dorian’s personal life, he tried baiting Cassandra about the Southern Chantry. It said something about her determination to test out their friendship that even the phrase “Her Most Holy Galatea seductively eating a banana” got no rise from the Divine candidate.

 

“I just wish you felt comfortable telling me what is going on between you and Bull,” she said. She likely thought her tone of voice could be described as “patient.”

 

Dorian flapped his arms, nearly knocking Princess’s bony head. “It’s _something_ ,” he said, exasperated.

 

_A whole lot of something,_ Bull thought.

 

His answer apparently satisfied Cassandra because the pair moved on to shit-talking the attire and personal mannerisms of everyone from Solas to Lady Vivienne, a topic that took them and the creaking wagon all the way back to Skyhold.

 

They were met at the gates by a worried-looking Josephine, Cole, looking his usual amount of worried, and Varric, whose concerned expression melted into unbridled, sadistic glee the second he saw Guingalet.

 

“Are you—is everyone all right?” Josephine asked, looking at Cassandra.

 

Cassandra nodded. “Dorian has kept the Iron Bull from being poisoned. He simply needs rest.”

 

“He simply needs ale,” Bull cut in from his seat in the back.

 

“Okay, Tiny, not that I won’t make sure you get some of that, but which one of you is it?” Varric broke in, looking from each of their faces and back to Guingalet.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cassandra snapped, her face bright red.

 

“Oho! Buttercup owes me ten royals.”

 

“He seems like such a nice animal,” Josephine said, stepping towards Guingalet and stroking him from nose to withers. “Surely you aren’t fussing about him.”

 

Everyone except Cole stared, openmouthed.

 

Varric recovered first. “Ten royals I will be handing over to Nightingale, apparently,” he grumbled.

 

Bull saw Josephine’s lips quirk up just slightly as she stroked the creature’s black withers.

 

“But—but you’re Antivan!” Dorian spluttered.

 

Josephine smirked at him. “Perhaps you should not judge people on the basis of their home country, Master Pavus.”

 

“Unsportsmanlike conduct, Lady Montilyet,” he pouted. “Bull, I think you and I should go fetch that ale you were talking about. It seems I require it.” He slid down from the front of the cart as elegantly as a man who’d spent all day in leather pants on a wooden seat could manage. Bull took his arm and grunted himself out the back when Dorian offered it, leaning on the other mage for support to keep weight off the bad leg.

 

“Dorian,” Cole trailed after them. “Their mother said it was okay, Dorian.”

 

“What are you talking about, Cole?” Dorian’s tone held the same tinge of exasperated patience every time he spoke to the spirit.

 

“I made you sad when I talked about Rilenius but you wouldn’t let me make you forget because the hurt was too close to the middle of your chest and you wanted to know the answer.” Bull remembered the conversation. _He would have said yes._ Dorian had almost cried, then, standing rooted to the spot knee deep in water and giant guts outside that creepy oasis.

 

“Er… Something like that.” Slow as their pace had been, Dorian had stopped moving almost completely, him and Bull stepping forwards at a trudge.

 

“You were sad. The hurt is still tangled up inside of you. I’m not worth it it’s not important why did he have to leave please stay Maker above please I just want someone who doesn’t leave. Varric told me that sometimes I have to make up for opening the hurt wrong instead of just making people forget.”

 

“I... That’s really not…” Dorian mumbled.

 

“Their mother said it was okay. They want to help.” Cole repeated, and pulled a tiny, squirming mabari puppy from somewhere in his jacket. He thrust it into Dorian’s hands. “Cullen named his Ladybird because he was homesick.”

 

“I’m not going to keep this thing, Cole you can hardly expect me to—“

 

“You named him Felix.”

 

“I did no such thing!”

 

Cole looked apologetic. “You were going to say it in common,” he said, “but in your head you named him Felix.”

 

The puppy sniffed Dorian’s beringed and gave his fingers a small, pink lick. Dorian glowered at it fondly.

 

“I suppose I should at least bathe him,” he grumbled. “This is Ferelden, after all. It may never happen again.”

 

Felix barked. The sound was so reedy and precious Dorian forgot himself for a moment and cooed at him. Bull chuckled.

 

“I guess I could keep it around for a few days if you really insist.” Dorian looked up to find Cole nowhere in sight. He sighed. “On to the tavern, then, Bull. Felix.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felix translates from Latin/Tevene to "Lucky" ha ha I'm so clever.
> 
> Dorian went through a number of really painful things last chapter and also my brain is fried because of work and my cousin's wedding tomorrow and somehow all that and my friend Alistair complaining about wanting his own mabari led to an 80% plotless chapter of "Dorian gets a puppy." 
> 
> Guingalet is the name of Sir Gawain's horse in the Squire's Tale series by Gerald Morris. They are great (and surprisingly short and readable) retellings of Arthurian legends if anyone wants to take a look. 10/10 Arthurian nerds would recommend.


	15. Chapter Fifteen: The Tide Comes, The Tide Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, progress.

It was a lot fewer drinks than Bull expected later when Dorian uncasually offered to help Bull up the stairs to his room above the tavern. There was no one else with them to overhear, though Krem looked on from his perch up on his favorite chair.  Bull guessed that had he been within earshot, Dorian would have been subtler.

 

When they made it up the stairs—no easy task, Bull really did need the help—Dorian let himself in to Bull’s room, wandering around and inspecting his appointments. Bull carefully neglected to close the door behind both of them. He could guess, but he didn’t want Dorian to think he was assuming what the other man wanted.

 

"What in the name of Andraste's naughtiest sleepwear is that?" Dorian poked at a slip of leather etched in bluish runes with his foot. 

 

"You will not like that," Bull said in lieu of an answer.

 

"Then I am absolutely certain you should tell me what it is and why you have one." 

 

Bull scrubbed at his face with a hand. 

 

"Or I could just... Run some tests on it," Dorian began innocently, hovering a hand lit with a haze of purple magic over the damn thing. 

 

"That would be pretty fucking stupid, as I'm sure you know," Bull rumbled sourly. 

 

"Then I'm sure you know that I'm curious about why your quarters contain a collar that blocks spell casting." 

 

Bull sighed. This was not really how he had wanted the evening’s conversation to go. "Dalish...she used to have these freak outs. Not often but..." He shrugged. "She was born in Denerim. Her parents threw her over the wall of the Alienage when the nobles purged it. Got picked up by a clan. She was just a kid, hadn’t come in to her magic yet, so they kept her and raised her their way. She has flashbacks to the purge, though. Not as much as she used to. She's gotten better since she's gotten with Skinner and Krem." 

 

Dorian smiled sadly. "I can at least attest to the fact that magic and traumatic memories do not mix. Is that why she is no longer with her clan?" 

 

Bull nodded. "Accidentally blew a thirty foot crater that took out half their halla and a big one of those boat-wagons trying to escape from walls that weren't there." 

 

"May I?" Dorian asked, reaching. 

 

Bull jerked his head in affirmative and Dorian picked up the collar with distasteful, gentle fingers. 

 

"This is Qunari make, yes?"

 

Bull nodded. 

 

 

Dorian chuckled as he brushed a careful hand over it. "This would never work on a necromancer," he said. 

 

"Sure about that, are you?"

 

"Yes," Dorian was smirking. "Oh, it'd have an unpleasant effect, certainly. It no doubt provides enough weakening to keep your untrained sarebaas in line, but magic is all about will. Necromancy is all about having the most of it. It only works because you have the temerity to believe you can make the dead get up and walk. This collar," Dorian shook the leather, "works because it makes you believe you are powerless. It cannot stop me from exacting my wishes so long as I have no doubts." 

 

Bull had never in his life wanted so badly to kiss him. Dorian shut the door.

 

“So,” Dorian said briskly, clapping his hands together as though they were starting a business meeting, “it was strongly implied that there would be rough and frankly exotic sex. Shall we get on with it?”

 

“Exotic?” the Bull snorted.

 

“Well, I’ll grant _you_ never said that, but Flissa did. And Melanie backed her right up. As did Ser Morris, oddly enough.”

 

“I never had sex with Flissa,” Bull said. “As a matter of self-preservation, I don’t tend to risk involvement with the only local bartender.”

 

“But the quartermaster who provides you with all your material possessions is just fine so long as it doesn’t affect the ale supply,” Dorian rolled his eyes. “At any rate, ‘exotic’ is both a relative and offensive term. And it’s not like you can pull it off.”

 

“Oh?” Bull gave his best impression of Leliana. Some of the effect of raising one eyebrow got lost when you didn’t really have a second.

 

Dorian sniffed. “My people _invented_ depravity, you know. Most likely with a great deal of red wine and blood magic, but the point stands nonetheless. There is _nothing_ I haven’t tried at least once.”

 

Bull chuckled rather nastily at that. "Two royals says I can find something for us to do tonight you've never before done in bed."  
  
"You're on." Dorian smirked back, the flash of white teeth enticing and dark and full of promise.

 

“Either way, you do sort of win.” There was silence after that, an unspoken challenge that made the air ripple and crack and drew the air from Bull’s lungs up tight as strings on a mandolin. Dorian stepped forwards, then.

 

Bull leaned in and kissed him like it was their first time. He would remember this one like it was, anyway. He grabbed Dorian’s arms and hauled him the rest of the way in, trying to tell him through teeth and lips what he couldn’t yet say aloud, not even in small words that were supposed to be safe. How did you tell someone that you wanted to keep them and never let them run away? That you wanted to consume their very essence and it still wouldn’t be enough? How did you even let someone know you _wanted_ when both of you had been trained from birth to know you weren’t fucking supposed to do that?

 

Bull didn’t know, Bull spoke three languages and a smattering of Elven and he still could not find the proper words. Instead he clutched tighter, trying to smear Dorian with every time he had ever thought the phrase _I want you._

 

When had he started to consider putting his faith in something other than the tide coming back in the morning? There would be dark bruises tomorrow on Dorian’s arms and shoulders. He wouldn’t be able to hide them under his clothes without someone asking about it. Bull found he liked that. Having someone that belonged only to him. There are no possessions under the Qun.

 

The world stopped when Dorian kissed him back. There was nothing so casual as “want” about Dorian’s lips crushed against his. Dorian kissed Bull like he was trying to rip his own heart out. As if he needed to prove this was real and would do so if only he could reach a hand into his chest. Bull felt a sudden, aching compulsion to be worthy of that kind of kiss.  It was possibly the only thing in that moment that could have pulled him back.

 

Pull back he did, and tried it again, gentler this time. This time, his mouth was tender on Dorian’s swollen lips. He thinks he got it right, because when he pulled away there were tears in Dorian’s eyes, and Bull had to kiss him a third time, his mouth full of the word _fealty_ and a whimpering prayer that he could somehow be enough.

 

Dorian’s hands went for his harness as his mouth went for his throat and Bull let him have both, his fingers trailing up Dorian’s arms. He paused every now and then to undo a buckle or strap, his hands trembling too badly to make any real headway and what kind of Qunari spy allowed his hands to tremble just because he had been kissed? Bull did not think he was especially weak in this regard, could only assume that the besrathari had never have devised training thorough enough to withstand being kissed by Dorian Pavus.

 

Dorian scowled against the skin of his neck and huffed a short _really_ into the bruise he was carefully forming there. Bull thought for a second he had spoken his thoughts out loud until Dorian batted his hands away, closed his eyes, and undid every strap and buckle at once with a short magical jerk. He shed his jacket and returned to Bull’s harness, still trying to negotiate the handful of buckles around the Qunari’s girth.

 

“Why don’t you just magic them?” Bull asked, still reeling a little at just how hot Dorian had gotten him with the buckle trick.

 

“I might hurt you. Don’t know exactly where they are.” Dorian had neither looked up at him nor continued spreading needy breaths and nibbles along his neck.

 

“Really?” Bull asked skeptically.

 

“No.” From the sound of Dorian’s voice the answer cost him dearly. “Want to touch you,” he murmured. “Any way I can.”

 

Bull smiled and allowed him to finish with the buckles. He undid his belt himself, then drew Dorian’s quivering hand up to the eye patch.

 

“May I?” Dorian’s fingers brushed it, seeking permission he had already been given.

 

Bull nodded, brushing his face more into Dorian’s hand. He could not remember the last time he had allowed a lover to take off the patch. He had never really thought about why. Perhaps none had seemed interested.

 

Dorian was interested. He ran fingers that were so gentle, so whole, along the dents and ridges in his skin where it had started to grow around the straps after years of the thing sitting in the same place. He brushed the ruined eye socket and its surprisingly sensitive furrows of twisted tissue and skin. With an expression that Bull prayed was something more than a necromancer’s morbid fascination, Dorian pressed a kiss there, right where the old wound was splashed pink with the healing scar of the newer one. Short and sweet.

 

He knew the look that must be on his face and he could only pray it wasn’t so much for Dorian that it scared him. He moved onwards. After all, he had a bet to win.

 

Bull picked Dorian up into a sort of bridal carry and then shuffled him until he had the majority use of one of his hands. Dorian wasn’t heavy, perhaps double the weight of his axe. He was manageable, even with the use of only one arm and foot. The thought sent an aroused flutter through his stomach. Something to consider for a later time, if there was one. Right now, he simply used his free hand to peel the bedcovers back and then tuck Dorian under them. Bull then joined him, both of them with blankets tucked to their chins and their pants decidedly on.  Dorian found a myriad of squawked rejoinders and protests kissed lazily from his lips. They continued with no real intent even after Dorian fell quiet and the softness and warmth around them both began to deepen with the edges of sleep.

  
Bull curled around the mage next to him. "Good night, Dorian," he whispered, laying a protective arm across his bare shoulders.  
  
Bull woke to an empty bed, but the dent next to him was still warm where Dorian had been sleeping. There were two royals on his nightstand. Bull smiled. It was progress, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My birthday is tomorrow. I chose to celebrate by finally giving you guys actual kisses.


	16. Chapter Sixteen: The Sea Isn’t Changeless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up, and where the hell is the dog?

Dorian had read that some people, most of them, actually, woke up in the mornings and frequently took a moment to remember where they were and how they had gotten there.  He envied those people deeply.

 

He looked up at the sky from where he lay in Bull’s bed and tried to figure out _why_ he had ended up here. He was quite certain of the how.

 

They had been drinking, having some sort of appallingly greasy tavern dinner. Bull snuck Felix bits of bread and cheese every time Dorian took a sip, though Dorian had only actually caught him in the act about half the time. He tried to remember how many pints of Fereldan ale he had drunk and came up with a disappointingly low three. Essentially sober, then. Oh well. No one would contradict him if he said eight later, Bull least of all.

 

He felt a pinch of guilt around his stomach at that. Bull had not taken advantage of him. He had wanted him to, had followed him up to his room and shut the door and rubbed the collar between hinting fingers. He didn’t want to wear it, just wanted to see Bull’s face when he blasted it apart. He had made that foolish bet. Had outright said _rough and exotic sex_ and still….

 

Bull had kissed him and it was not at all the invasion he expected. He had been so shocked by the kindness, the _passion_ of it that it took him a moment to remember to kiss back.

 

The second time Bull kissed him, his mouth was soft and gentle and the hand he brought up to touch Dorian's face was gentler still, the Iron Bull's enormous thumb just brushing against his cheek.  


His eye, then, when Dorian had removed the patch and kissed the scar beside it. Bull had looked at him as though he were certain Dorian was something good.

 

And then they had simply gone to bed. No sex, not so much as a quick hand job. As though they were _lovers_ or something wretched like that. Maker’s lacy black thong, they hadn’t even taken all their clothes off. The thought alone made Dorian feel a bit sea sick. And still, Bull had put an arm around his chest and pulled him close, as though he were important.

 

Dorian was not startled by any of these memories. Revelations. If he had been startled, he would have lurched out of bed. Bull’s bed. If he had been a weak, foolish man who read kindness into a silly bet and a casual invitation he would have left a token of his sentiment. Instead, he dug into his pockets and placed two royals on the night stand.

 

Never let it be said that Dorian Pavus did not pay his debts.

 

He found Felix asleep in a huge wicker basket atop the bar, his tiny belly distended from all the treats people—Bull—had been sneaking him. The basket contained a sort of round pillow that seemed made for the bottom, a fleece blanket, and a snide note from Sera telling him to let Felix keep the basket (he would grow into it) and chiding him for his poor canine parenting skills.

 

He couldn’t presently disagree. It only took him one mildly exciting night to forget the poor beast, after all. He stroked him gently and the mabari puppy twitched in its sleep, snuggling closer to his hand. There were bruises on his arms where his shirt did not cover them. It sickened Dorian to realize that he had already been forgiven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I forgot to translate the bit of Qunlat last chapter, so here it is now:
> 
> besrathari-- the trainers and recruiters for the Ben-Hassrath.


	17. Chapter Seventeen: Secret Agent Crap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all gifts are wanted. Some gifts are booby-trapped.

“You know this stinks,” Leliana shoved the paper back at him with marked distaste.

 

“Yeah, but does it stink like my people stink or does it stink like sneaky vints?”

 

The spymaster sighed. She would do nothing so crass as run her hands through her hair, but her fingers twitched like they wanted to in her frustration. “It is… unusual, certainly, but I believe they are genuinely offering an alliance.”

 

“After they make sure I’m loyal to the Qun.”

 

“That is clearly one of their objectives, yes,” Leliana told him, “but you were already aware of that.”

 

“I submitted _myself_ to be reeducated,” Bull grumbled.

 

“Perhaps they went easy on you.”

 

Bull glowered, but did not contradict. They probably had. Maybe his resolve was fading. A weak mind would naturally become weak again, especially when there were… distractions. He willed his brain to think of the exploding conclave, the hole in the sky. Anything at all besides warm brown skin and slow steady breaths and the phantom taste of Fereldan ale still clinging to his lips.

 

Yeah, Dorian was definitely a distraction.

 

“Fuck it, I’ll talk to the boss about it when she gets back. I’m gonna go hit something.” Leliana never trained in the daylight, but he had seen the shredded training dummies. Dagger marks and arrow holes Cassandra would placidly claim were from her sword when she requisitioned new ones. The lie must be as old as the left and right hands themselves, as the seeker hardly blushed saying it anymore. Leliana would understand.

 

“Bull,” she called him back. “It would be foolish to refuse the invitation, but…”

 

“It’s gonna end badly, yeah.”

 

The spymaster nodded. “I am afraid I cannot do anything about it.”

 

Bull left to find Krem. He really needed to hit something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter today, but as always I will update soon.


	18. Chapter Eighteen: The Wrong End of the Ugly Stick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian learns a valuable lesson about playing with fire.

It was days before Dorian could face Bull again. Days in which he skulked around his own alcove, researching thaumaturgy and trying very hard to read himself to exhaustion. It rarely worked.

 

On the fourth day, he found that he was no closer to being able to enchant pots of healing balm to warm as you applied them. He had managed to create a pot that heated its contents to a scorching boil the instant they were set inside, but, as always, he had problems with moderation.

 

Bull’s leg was healing quickly. Dorian could see the evidence in the training yard outside of his window. Stitches’ much-stronger-than-is-likely-safe poultices had knit back together muscle and skin, though Dorian could tell even from his distant vantage point that the ankle was still weak, barely walkable. Naturally, the Iron Bull was fighting on it, doing some sort of training with Krem that involved a whole lot of macho shield bashing and of digging one’s stance into the dirt. He rubbed the scarred skin of his fingertips, thickened where the raw magic had ripped through them that first day in the Deep Roads. Stitches had done excellent work, even if it had not preserved his vanity. Bull would be fine. Maybe.

 

Felix snuffled and rearranged himself on Dorian’s lap before rolling over to be petted with the mage’s free hand once more.

 

“At least he has a brace on,” Dorian told the animal.  Felix emitted a soft sort of squeaking noise and Dorian fed him more cheese from a small platter. He made a note to ask Cullen or someone equally Fereldan what mabari actually ate. Felix seemed happy enough with cheese and tavern scraps for now, but Dorian suspected he would soon grow fat.

 

Actually, Dorian thought, smiling as he pictured his dog round and plump, that wouldn’t be a terrible plan. At least one of them ought to be able to let themselves go. Perhaps he would look slimmer with Felix waddling after him. Bull would laugh, at least.

 

He frowned at the thought. Bull might laugh if Bull would even look at him. It wasn’t as if he had been _hiding_ these past few days and the great horned idiot certainly hadn’t sought him out.

 

Still, he hoped there was something more to those kisses in Bull’s room. The only night he had ever slept with someone and actually slept. He hadn’t yet wanted to see Bull, but he wanted Bull to want to see him. It was a foolish sentiment, one he thought he had long ago drowned, kittens mewling piteously in their sack.  

 

He smelled ozone and looked down to see wisps of static lightning curling from his hands, leaving tiny scorch marks where he gripped the book’s pages. He snapped the volume shut before any real harm could come to it. Self-control: that was the real problem. Vivienne would never let him hear the end of this.

 

He stood and went outdoors. Far better to do something constructive with his time and pent up magical energy than slow roast innocent manuscripts. And if he happened to head towards a training area that was currently occupied by some of the chargers, well, Skyhold was only so big, wasn’t it?

 

Dorian hung his cloak on a fence post near the training dummies. If the fence post was part of the sparring ring where Bull and Krem still clashed, that was because there was only the one fence. He didn’t look at the men. It was actually reasonably warm today, at least for this late in the year, and he planned on showing off.

 

He planted his staff blade-first into the ground and shook out his arms and hands. Dorian fell into the rhythm of his stretches, shifting from low stance to low stance until he could feel the small burn of the tendons in his thighs. He bent back, then around, pulling each bit of his spine back into alignment. He pinwheeled his arms, feeling each bruise that had yet to fully heal twinge and stretch.

 

He picked up his staff again, smirking when he felt eyes on him. Not Bull’s eye, probably, but eyes enough that Bull would be sorry he missed this.

 

Dorian made a show of mincing around the training dummy, twirling his staff in one hand, considering the best angle. Then he lit both ends of his staff with the nervous, crackling lightning that today flowed from him so readily and just _whaled_ on it.

 

He didn’t use ranged attacks, barely used magic. He simply went after the dummy with the kind of savage ferocity Tevinter or possibly the Iron Bull was supposed to fuck out of people like him. He kept at it, pouring sweat and feeling each strike jar the muscles of his arms until one of the loose cloth shreds he had ripped from the dummy’s chest caught alight.

 

He switched to frost magic and beat the fire out. He hated being cold. Something about the burning and freezing and being hit repeatedly with a wood and metal stick weakened the dummy, and his next good hit sent the whole thing sailing into the castle wall with a clatter of splitting wood and singed straw bits.

 

He burned it to ash, turning the fire hotter every time he thought about what his father might say to a display like this.

 

It wasn’t until he was breathing heavily, leaning on his staff and staring at the glowing embers of his tantrum that Dorian became aware of a low whistle and several slow claps. The chargers were watching him.

 

He flushed, probably from exertion. “Hey hothouse,” Dalish called, “catch!”

 

She flicked her wrist and a still-glowing chunk of the dummy began whistling towards his head. Dorian closed his eyes. Flow like water, his sparring tutor had said. Redirect their force, instead of trying to outmatch it. He allowed the ember to keep going, come closer, then yanked it in a circle, orbiting around his own head before sending it back to Dalish with all the force of a slingshot, her own magic accidentally lending speed to the projectile.

 

The elf shrieked and had no time to do anything except let the coal splatter across a clumsy barrier. Dorian felt a twinge of guilt. It was unlikely Dalish sparred other mages regularly, possibly not ever. He had not expected her to be so outmatched.

 

There was a hand around his neck and a dagger at his ribs. Yes, he had indeed committed a slight breach of etiquette. Dorian held very still. If the person he assumed to be Skinner stabbed him, he could most certainly make her regret it, but he would prefer to avoid that altogether.

 

Krem had vaulted the sparring ring fence. He appeared to be having some sort of whispered conversation with Dalish. It ended when he brushed a thumb over her tattooed cheek, smiling with eyes full of concern. “Let him go, Skinner,” Krem ordered.

 

The knife pressed tighter into Dorian’s chest. “Think it’s funny to hurt little knife-ears, vint?” a female voice hissed. The part of Dorian that was not on the verge of wetting himself noted with interest that she also had a Tevinter accent. Did Bull hold some sort of fucking recruitment drive there? What were the requirements to join? _Qunari seeking vints who call other vints “vints” for mercenary job killing vints._

“He didn’t mean to, Skinner,” Krem approached them with open hands.

 

“Eum non noce!” Bull barked. He had been silent through the exchange, but now he looked almost worried.

 

Skinner dropped her weapon and stepped back. Dalish went to her, smoothing her fingers over Skinner’s newly emptied hands. Dorian eyed the fingerless gloves Skinner always wore and developed a quiet suspicion. They spoke in fragments of broken Common and Elvhen, Dalish’s voice soothing and Skinner’s angry and fearful.

 

Skinner swept up her dagger and stepped back until she bumped into Krem’s chestplate. Krem wrapped his arms around her, possessive, and Dorian felt a jealous twinge that hurt far more than the poke of Skinner’s dagger.

 

Dalish grinned at him. She was, apparently, the only person not concerned that she had almost gotten her face burnt off. “Teach me to do that, Hothouse, and I’ll show you a bit of Keeper magic.”

 

Dorian looked at Krem and Skinner, clinging to one another and now mostly content, and back to Bull, who was still holding his axe, still glistening with sweat. The look in his normally calm eye was close to frantic. He thought of climbing vines and things growing from the ground up.

 

“I think we can work something out,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys appreciate my Tevene. I had to break out my old high school Latin textbook. xD
> 
> Eum non noce -- You will not harm him
> 
> Additionally, this chapter is dedicated to my friend Thea whom I accidentally didn't tell I was writing this fic.


	19. Chapter Nineteen: A Requiem for the Empire that Was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even vints can learn a few new things. The Iron Bull could use a distraction.

Bull gave up on any pretense of training for the rest of the afternoon. Shit, Grim and Rocky went to the kitchens and fetched snacks. He sat with them, cracking chestnuts in his hand as they watched the lessons.

 

Dorian was a patient tutor, despite the bluster. It gave Bull pause. He had always assumed that all magic came effortlessly to the man, but naturals were usually terrible teachers.

 

He started slow, levitating a small rock and sending it to Dalish head on. Neither mage used their staff. Bull wondered if Dorian was even remotely as dependent on it as he pretended. Dalish thrust a hand into the air, fingers gripping nothing as her arm twisted. The rock altered its path, shooting out at a right angle behind her head.

 

“Good,” Dorian said. “Now this time send it back to me.”

 

They practiced until Dalish could whip the rock around with a terrifying amount of precision and force. Dorian grinned, once, and then made her practice it without the hand motions. “You are a child of the gods,” he told her. “You need not lift a finger to exact your will if you do not wish it.”

 

“That’s just about the vintiest thing I’ve ever heard, Altus,” Krem called from his position at the sidelines. He cracked nuts with his bare fingers and absently fed their innards to Skinner, seated in his lap.

 

“You know I was told the Soporati didn’t even speak proper Tevene, but before now I never believed it,” Dorian sniffed.

 

“Mater tua me putavit loctus bonus heri nocte,” Krem answered, not missing a beat.

 

“That was hardly called for,” Dorian said, mock-wounded. “My mother is far too busy with the more notable men of the magisterium to waste energy entertaining Soporati.”

 

Skinner laughed, and a tiny, nervous smile reappeared on Dorian’s lips. Dalish took the opportunity to whip the rock at him so hard that his barrier shattered it.

 

Dorian, whom Bull had expected to be embarrassed at being shown up, just laughed, openly and easily. Then with a snap of his fingers and a tiny tug at Bull’s chest, four new stones rose into the air. They flew for Dalish at different angles, and she knocked the first two back to Dorian. The third landed somewhere behind her with a soft flump, and the fourth made contact with her arm just hard enough for Dalish to frown and rub the spot. Bull doubted it would even bruise. Krem put a halting arm around Skinner nonetheless.

 

Dalish crooked a finger at Dorian, and the mage leapt from his spot too late, a tangle of vine wrapping around his left foot. When he tried to wrench away, the plants tightened and he fell face first into the dirt.

 

The chargers burst into a chorus of raucous laughs. “Face down, ass up, that’s how I like my Alti,” said Krem, snickering.

 

“It’s a pretty sight, Cremesius,” Bull answered, loud enough for Dorian and everyone else in the training ring to hear. “It’s a pretty sight indeed.”

 

Dorian froze the vines, kicking at them until they shattered and stood, flushing vigorously, to take a bow. “Now if all of you don’t mind, I would like very much to become inebriated.”

 

The chargers whooped their approval when Bull flapped a hand, dismissing the rowdy, irresponsible lot of them to the tavern. It was earlier than he would have normally ended training, but today he had a different distraction.

 

By the time Bull got to the tavern, every seat at their table save his own had been filled. Dorian, of course, had wound up in the place to the left of him. Something in Krem’s smirk told him this had not been an accident. Koslun’s piss on perceptive, meddling vints.

 

Bull took his seat and watched the action around him. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to be the boisterous mercenary today. No one seemed to mind. No one but Dorian and Krem seemed to notice.

 

Dorian bought drinks for both Dalish and Skinner, a reward and an apology. Skinner’s ale sloshed when Dorian set it down and Bull wondered how he hadn’t seen that the mage’s hands had gone shaky. Skinner cursed and removed her ale-soaked glove. Dorian glanced at the center of her hand, a much lighter brown than her normally-exposed fingertips. The brand there stood sharply against her skin, a pink raised F, too deep to be faded by even the most talented healers.

 

“Fugitiva,” Dorian murmured. “I am sorry. My father says they are less often the marks of bad servants than they are bad masters.”

 

Skinner’s eyes narrowed and she instinctively hid her uncovered hand. “There is no such thing as a good master,” she said slowly.

 

“I—“ Dorian stopped himself from whatever it was he would have said. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I—apologize. It seems there is much left for me to learn about Tevinter.”

 

Skinner tilted her mug at him, holding it with her ungloved hand. “To vints who are not quite as foolish as they appear,” she said.

 

The chargers took up a chorus of “here here”s and drank as one. It was simple after that. Dorian kept bringing Skinner beer and in return Skinner seemed to decide with finality that Dorian be allowed to live.

 

Krem was trying to convince Rocky of increasingly ridiculous “facts” about Tevinter handfasting ceremonies when Dorian spoke to Bull at last.

 

“You’re being awfully quiet,” he said, carefully looking at his mug and not his conversation partner.

 

“Haven’t had much to say,” Bull grunted, keeping his voice as low as Dorian’s. Krem looked distracted, but Bull did not for a second believe his lieutenant didn’t hear. No one else could, though.

 

“I’ll leave soon, Bull. I can take a hint.”

 

“No!” It was just a breath away from being an exclamation. Qunari were supposed to have more control than this. Bull took a deep breath and tried again. “You don’t have to. It’s not you that’s… shit.” He rubbed at the base of his horns. “I got a letter the other day. It’s all hush hush right now but you’ll know eventually. Qunari want an alliance.”

 

Dorian visibly bristled, but his tone stayed even. Nearly nonjudgmental. “I would assume you to be excited rather than subdued by news like that.”

 

“I should be.”  Bull clamped his jaw shut but it seemed Dorian had heard the admissions in there, whether or not they had been spoken aloud.

 

“Well,” said Dorian slowly, “if it is not my presence that you take issue with, perhaps you can permit yourself to be… distracted by it.”

 

Bull felt a slow-crawling smile tug at the scars across his face.

 

Dorian stood first, and Bull waited a while, certain that the mage would want to be discrete about it even if he _had_ flounced up the tavern stairs as if he were daring someone to make a lewd comment about his ass.

 

"You were surprised at him today," Krem took a swig from his bottle and tried to do that unnerving fucking thing where he made eye contact.  
  
Bull nodded, not looking at his second in command. "Yeah, I'm a shit spy, thank you."  
  
Krem shook his head. "Nah. You just don't know what it's like in Tevinter."  
  
Bull rolled his eyes, Krem switched tactics. "You know I saw someone spit on him once."  
  
Bull's hand tensed on the table until he feared the wood would start cracking. Krem ignored it.  
  
"This kid who helps out in the library or whatever. Walked right up, called him 'malifecar,' and spat in his face. And Dorian was as cool as you please. Just looked at the kid and goes calmly," Krem did a poor impression of Dorian's voice, higher and prissier than his own. “‘When you were plotting the details of that little display, did you think through the wisdom of allowing a Tevinter blood mage possession of your bodily fluids?’ I’ve never seen a paper-shuffler go so fast. He picked up his chantry skirts and ran like Dorian set his asshole on fire."

 

“Why would you tell me that?”

 

Krem shrugged. “I’m just saying I know what to look for in a man. You didn’t see me stabbing him and accusing him of torturing knife-ears when he nearly blew my lover’s face off, did you?”

 

Bull nodded. “I’m gonna kill that kid,” he said.

 

Krem rolled his eyes. “No you aren’t. We’ll all get fired and the boss’ll have to find a new body guard. Now go up to your quarters. Seems like there might be something interesting in there.”

 

Bull did as he was bid. Maybe he couldn’t commit murder if he didn’t want the boss to have to sit in uncomfortable judgement of a man in the inner circle, but he could stop by Sera’s room. He tucked a note into her journal with a name and a short list of suggestions.

 

By the time he reached his rooms, Dorian was standing in the middle looking up. “You know, the first time I thought I imagined that.”

 

Bull glanced up at his makeshift skylight and shrugged. “I like looking at the stars,” he said.

 

“I don’t know if you are aware of this,” Dorian told him, “but sometimes water falls in droplets directly from the sky. In civilized cultures we call it raining.”

 

Bull rolled his eye. “Are we gonna talk about weather phenomena or are we gonna—“

 

“Yes, please,” Dorian answered, and kissed him.

 

It was a little ridiculous that in order to accomplish his goal without Bull’s voluntary assistance Dorian had to leap up, grab him by the horns, and yank Bull’s head down, but Bull could use a little ridiculous.  He kissed Dorian back, craning his head down on his own to ease their height gap.

 

He had assumed it was just the first kiss that had jolted him, that the one night had been wrapped up in such heady anticipation and a tangle of emotions that it had been more intense to process but when Dorian kissed him it still felt like a brand.

 

“Dorian,” he whispered. The name was seared to his lips. He slammed the other man to the wall, unthinking. Dorian hit the wood behind him with a dull thud and a rush of breath that turned to bright orange flame as it left.

 

Bull jumped back, purely by reflex. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

 

Dorian flushed. “Sorry,” he said. Smoke wisped out of his mouth when he pronounced the “s” and Bull was painfully, excruciatingly done for.

 

“Ataashi,” Bull crooned at him. He hadn’t meant to say it. Pet names, even sexual ones, were something lovers did. “My ataashi,” he said again. Shit. Personal possessives always made things better.

 

Dorian pressed himself into the wall, his cock hard and his eyes glassed over. “What does that mean,” he whispered.

 

Bull pressed forwards, rubbing himself against Dorian. Letting the mage feel his hardness, his desire, the residual heat of flame on his skin.  “It means dragon,” he said. “It means glorious one.” He emphasized each statement with a slow roll of his hips. Dorian whimpered and clutched at him, too dazed to attempt another kiss. “Means do it again,” he said.

 

Dorian obliged, and this time Bull felt him draw on his magic, saw the control behind it as flames licked, but didn’t burn his skin. “Glorious one,” he rumbled, in Common rather than Qunlat.

 

He kept rutting, his training telling him to hide even as he pressed further, wanting Dorian to know, to feel without a doubt every inch of what he had done to him.

 

Dorian reached between them and Bull grabbed the hand, pinning it against the wall beside his head.

 

“No,” he said, and Dorian groaned louder than if Bull had touched him. That was interesting.

 

He didn’t let go of the arm while he fucked at Dorian with both their clothes still on, nor when Dorian spat sparks while Bull laved at his neck. The upshot of this was that, when Bull came embarrassingly quickly and Dorian followed not long thereafter, they were actually holding hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any grammatical errors in the Latin are my own-- I haven't used it since high school and I'm a little out of practice.
> 
> Mater tua me putavit loctus bonus heri nocte -- Your mother thought I talked just fine last night.
> 
> Fugitiva -- Runaway 
> 
> ataashi -- literally, "glorious one(s)." Qunari term for dragons.


	20. Chapter Twenty: Letters to Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sister Nightingale asks for copies of everything. Some of the things she gets are highly informative reads.

Sister Nightingale sighed as she looked over Cooper’s packet, each letter copied out in her operative’s unwavering shorthand.

 

_Beloved Father,_

_I haven’t been practicing my ice forms. I am certain that I am scarcely above average at them now. Instead, I have been allowing one of those Dalish savages to teach me how to wrench vines from the ground. It turns out that despite my best efforts, I am just terrible at creation._

_On that note, do let mother know that I have continued to show none of the innate abilities of the spirit healers, no matter how strong such things are in her bloodline. She will simply have to suffer through the shame of having the greatest Necromancer outside of Nevarra for a son. Make certain you use the term Necromancer when you say it. I find Mortalitasti does a bit too much to soften the blow._

_Your Darling Son,_

_Dorian_

_P.S._

_If you happen across Magister Danarius, let him know that he is welcome to come and collect his darling Vulpis just the second he feels up to engaging me in single combat. I am more than prepared to make his visit as comfortable as a man of his impeccable character deserves._

 

(Note from Cooper: Letter remains unsent. Was burned shortly after I copied it, if I’m not mistaken.)

 

_Dearest Mia,_

_Hi. Hello. I am still alive. In the future I will try to make sure I don’t take as long to let you know that. Again. Things have been surprisingly quiet here with the inquisitor out on mission. You will never guess who I have been passing the time with—a mage from Tevinter, of all people! He has proven himself surprisingly compassionate, though he cheats terribly at chess. I don’t mind it, honestly. He is so obvious as to be earnest about it, and Cassandra likes him. I have trusted Cassandra’s judgment on matters much more dire than this._

_Speaking of Cassandra, she has taken to going on walks around the ramparts with our Lady Ambassador. I think it is good for Josephine to get the fresh air._

_Lady Cadash is expected back later today, however, and I must cut this letter short as there are things I should attend to before she arrives._

_Your loving brother,_

_Cullen_

(Note from Cooper: Commander still hasn’t figured out the ravens. Will require assistance to send.)

_Pater,_

_Inquisition stuff is going well. Included some of my pay from last month, hope it helps. It’s been a little weird, though. Last week I wound up defending an Altus’s honor to the chief. He’s not an asshole, though (the Altus—chief is definitely an asshole), and the chief seems to like him. Like, really like him. The room I share with Skinner and Dalish is right next to Bull’s. Trust me, the chief likes him._

_Don’t know if he likes the chief yet. If it doesn’t work out, Skinner has a few ideas for what to do with him. Hopefully it won’t come to that. He’s good for Dalish, and the chief really likes him._

_Love,_

_Cremisius_

 

 

(Note from Cooper: Praise the maker, Cremisius is capable of sending a letter all on his own.)

 

Leliana filed her copies one by one as she read them, making coded notes in the margins of the book by her desk. She stood then, cracking the rickety joints of her spine. No one tells you that even with healing magic, a fight with an archdemon will take its toll more than ten years down the road.  She closed her codebook and selected her own parchment and pen. She still had a few hours before Lady Cadash returned. Perhaps it was time to see how Zevran and his lover were doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE: More than one trans reader has talked to me since I posted this chapter and said that, while they mostly understand why Krem might use his birth name with his parents it still makes them uncomfortable and/or they are offended by it. I checked with a friend of mine who is a trans man before posting this chapter originally to see his thoughts on the issue, and that is why I was initially comfortable using Krem's birth name. 
> 
> That said, I personally am a cis woman and I have not had the actual life experience of being trans, nor does my trans friend speak for the entire trans community. I got into fanfiction in part as a way to escape a world that did not always accept me and made me uncomfortable in small ways, and I would not want to bring that discomfort into a place that is supposed to be safe for everyone. 
> 
> So, with that in mind, I have changed the way Krem signs the letter to his father, but I have left my original author's note about his signature up as a testament to the fact that I am still learning. I want my fic to be a good experience for all of my readers, and I hope people do not hesitate to let me know when I can make that goal a reality.
> 
> Pre-update Author's Note:
> 
> I agonized over what name Krem would sign at the bottom of his letter, but I finally decided that, although it is clear in canon that his father either knows for sure or has at least guessed Krem's gender, Krem would likely try to make him feel more comfortable by continuing to use the feminine form of his name in that specific situation. 
> 
> That being said, I just want to make it clear that his use of Cremisia does not mean that I, Krem's father, or Krem himself actually think of Krem as a girl. It was just a character choice in which Krem put his father's comfort in front of his own.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, unrelated to gender, I NOW HAVE A TWITTER. You can follow me at @TrashyAtaashi (I have embraced my fate)


	21. Chapter Twenty-One: Anaan Essam Shok

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith is not always rewarded.

Once she was back, the boss was easy to find. Mostly because other people already had, and those people came carrying logistical issues and paperwork.   


 

"You are telling me," the inquisitor began dangerously, "that I have found ten rock quarries, fifteen logging sites, and an _abandoned elven castle_ , but you can't build both an infirmary and a training yard in our _military stronghold_ because there ‘aren't enough _resources_?’"  
  
She was bellowing by the time she finished and the aide Cullen had obviously decided to punish for something was leaning back from the dwarf in a manner that was almost comical.  
  
"I, um, well, yes, your Grace. I mean no, your Ladyship. I mean--"  
  
"Tell the darling commander to find the dear quartermaster and tell the two of them to Make. It. Happen."

 

“Welcome home, boss,” Bull chuckled.

Kyren sighed. “By the assholes of my ancestors, you’d think they’d at least let me wash the entrails and soot out first.”

 

“They’ve been festering in your hair and clothing for over a week now, darling. You may as well wear them with pride.” Vivienne swept by the two of them, looking exhausted but otherwise supremely elegant.

 

“How does she—“

 

“Barriers,” Kyren grunted. Vivienne didn’t even spare them a parting nod as she made a beeline for the bathhouse.

 

Bull sighed. “Well, I can grab you a bucket or something, but I have a problem that’s gonna need your attention once you’re all washed out.”

 

Kyren shrugged. “There are curtains in the bathhouse. Come tell me while I’m washing.”

 

“I thought I was an icky man who might corrupt your maidenly—“ Kyren punched him. Bull actually had to rub the spot on his arm before he grinned and followed her.

 

~#~

 

Dorian frowned into his cup at the war table meeting. Fruit juice—he’d been drinking less of late, but it wouldn’t do for anyone to believe he had stopped indulging. “An alliance,” he kept his voice so carefully scrubbed of skepticism as to have the opposite effect. “An alliance with the Qunari. Do they even do that?”

 

“No,” Bull answered, looking uncomfortable with being the center of attention. It was impossible to meet both his and the inquisitor’s eyes at the same time. Their heights were easily more than three feet apart. “No they don’t.”

 

“I still don’t particularly trust the Qunari,” Kyren grumbled. Dorian smirked into his goblet. The dwarf had taken what Vivienne referred to as a “fanatical” stance on mage rights, and her opinion of Saarebas ranked second only to her anger at nugs and Tevinter slavers. “At least I would rather get there with a force big enough to make them hesitate to reeducate us.”

 

Bull snorted. “Qunari don’t hesitate. Show up with an army when they asked for a few squads and they’ll just obliterate you.”

 

“They are not converting us, they are simply offering their assistance with the red templars,” Josephine interjected. “It would be a war-starting insult to refuse to at least meet with them.”

 

“I hate to speak positively of Par Vollen under any circumstances,” Dorian interrupted, “but Lady Josephine is right. I’m not especially comfortable with the arrangement but I would much prefer any and all Gaatlok canons be pointed away from us and towards our enemies.”

 

“And I’d prefer lyrium explosives,” Kyren sniffed, but she relented.

 

“Iron Bull, what races are your people most comfortable with outside their own?”

 

The Qunari shrugged. “Elves, probably. They make up most of the Viddathari Really anything besides humans and mages.”

 

The inquisitor smiled. “Excellent. We will bring Dorian and Lady Vivienne with us, then. Wouldn’t want them to get too comfy.” She wrenched her daggers from where she had stuck them into the table and marched out of the room without sparing a backward glance for Josephine’s hand-wringing or Leliana’s focused concentration on the map.

 

~#~

It was another week before Bull was well enough to ride. Another week during which he and Dorian barely spoke to one another. At least the vint wasn’t _hiding_ from him this time. He spent time teaching and learning with Dalish, listening and shutting up with Skinner and Krem. He also spent a frankly disturbing amount of time putting his head together and _muttering_ with Stitches. Stitches, of course, refused to tell Bull anything they had been discussing and when pressed, Dorian feigned ignorance of the entire interaction.

 

He didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until _Cassandra_ caught him looking. “You care for him,” she said, quiet enough that not quite the entire training yard could hear but no less blunt than usual.

 

Bull shrugged. Cassandra made a disgusted noise.

 

“It’s not like he’s come to me asking for affection.”

 

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “If you truly believe he has not, you are a worse spy than I am.”

 

“We’ve done stuff exactly twice and both times he was gone before sunrise.”

 

“And did you go find him?”

 

“No, I waited for him to—“

 

Cassandra gave a throat-clearing grunt that sounded suspiciously like the word _men_ and stalked off to hit something.

 

~#~

The Storm Coast looked bad. Worse than Dorian had predicted. Worse than their intelligence had predicted, if the tone of the whispered argument between Bull and Leliana’s agent not quite discernible through the tent was anything to go by. Dorian found a convenient place nearby to polish his staff and settled in to listen.

 

The whispers grew louder and more distinct. Dorian heard the phrase “—what you get when you trust an oxman--“ followed by a sharp crack.

 

Leliana’s agent stumbled from the tent, clutching her slightly bloodied mouth. Krem emerged seconds afterwards, shaking out his left hand. “Altus,” he nodded, and went about his business.

 

Dorian nodded back, and did his best to ignore Gatt, whom he had already snapped at once today. Bull was fond of him. Bull was fond of him and he was here to help. No matter that he talked about Seheron like it had been fun being there.

 

He was not surprised when the elf sniped at Bull for giving the chargers the “easy job.” He was not surprised when Bull brushed off the criticism in favor of being protective.

 

It was with a sickening lurch that Dorian realized no one, not Kyren, not himself, not Vivienne or Leliana’s agent, and certainly not Gatt was surprised when reinforcements appeared out of nowhere. Only Bull was shocked. It was not until that moment that Dorian realized Bull had been telling the truth when he spoke of his faith in the Qun. That he had expected the truth from his countrymen.

 

“Surely the chargers can fight them off,” Vivienne said. She had the decency to look concerned. She may truly have been. It was hard to tell with her. Dorian knew she cared for Bull. Did not care for collateral damage.

 

“They can’t,” Dorian answered. “Not with that many mages.” He swept his hand down to the force of Venatori, the majority of whom were armed with battle mage staffs. He knew. He had been training them, trying to help them get better at fighting his countrymen. Another failure on his part, he supposed. What would father say. “They’re weak against mages.”

 

“Oh dear,” was all Vivienne said. They fell silent and listened to Gatt give the threat of Tal Vashoth like a death sentence. They waited to see what the Iron Bull would command.

 

~#~

 

Kyren fixed Bull with a steady gaze. Her hand was cool against his cheek and her eyes were like a god revealed. She kept staring at him, without a break, without a hint of compassion or mercy. He was grateful. He felt very brittle, like iron cooled and reheated too many times and he thought mercy might be the one blow that would make him shatter.

 

“I was in the Carta, Bull,” she said quietly. “You don’t get as high up as I was without knowing how to do what needs to be done. But I always save my people. I can go either way tonight. I have let some people die before and I will do it again. I will do it and I will go home tonight and I will not cry. I will not cry because we will have done our best and we will have saved your people. What I need from you, right now, is to know who your people are.”

 

The Iron Bull was not aware of having fallen to his knees, but there he was, eye level with the inquisitor. Her face remained passive, emotionless as she watched Bull tear himself open from the inside. She hammered onwards, devoid of all pity. “I need you to tell me, Bull. Are you the chief or are you a Qunari?”

 

“I…” Bull felt as though she had kicked the breath out of him. “I’m not…”

 

For the first time since they spotted the Venatori, Kyren’s expression changed. Her mouth twisted into something that could have been understanding.  “Qunari don’t hesitate,” she said softly. “Sound the retreat.”

 

He didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He stayed, kneeling in the muck and the sand, a mask of anguish frozen on his face.

 

“Sound. The. Retreat.” She ground out. The ice and steel in her voice was what got him moving. He chose not to think about the fact that he responded because she sounded like a Tamassran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anaan Essam Shok: Victory is in the struggle.


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two: A Shitload of Paperwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Iron Bull isn't the only one dealing with fallout from his decision.

Final section of Triumvirate public meeting council transcript, as heard and translated in Par Vollen, 30 Wintersmarch, 9:42 Dragon by inquisition operative #260, codename: Baker.

 

Arigena: We will now hear those of the body who have concerns.

 

Woman (presumed Tamassran?): I am concerned.

 

Arishok: Speak.

 

Tamassran: The Qun dictates that our resources not be wasted and all be allowed to perform their functions, yet it also demands our obedience. The cruelty of the test of loyalty put to Hissrad—

 

Ariqun: The Qun has no name for Tal-Vashoth.

 

Tamassran: The Qun must have a place for everyone if we wish it to be universal as Koslun intended.

 

Arishok: The Qun has a place for all who follow it.

 

Tamassran: The Qun has a place only for those who blindly submit, it seems.

 

Ariqun: Submission is a demand of the Qun.

 

Tamassran: As is mercy.

 

Arishok (an aside to Arigena): She is correct in her thinking, if not in her actions.

 

Ariqun: Enough!

 

(end of transcript)

 

A correction from Baker: During the ensuing fight, it became clear that the woman whom I initially presumed due to age and bearing was a Tamassran was, at least at one point in time, a Tallis. I know no other group outside the Antivan crows to be that skilled with throwing knives. Ariqun’s wound likely to be fatal. Arishok and Arigena unharmed. Current whereabouts of unidentified woman, now Tal-Vashoth, unknown.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three: A Hundred Nails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A broken sword is a hundred nails waiting to become" -- Qunari Proverb

They were coming for him. He knew that. He also knew there was nothing to be done about it. Leliana had been on the lookout for Qunari assassins since a runner had come back before their party with the news, but it would make no difference. They would come for him eventually. He quietly got Stitches to mix an antidote for Saar-qamek and began drinking it daily. They were coming for him, and he could not even bring himself to get worked up about it.

 

Sera had been surprisingly comforting through it all. He had awoken this morning to find three bloodied arrows tied up in a bow outside his door with a short note on top:  


_Ben-Hassholes never made it up the stairs. See no reason to worry Her Gracious Ladybits about it but you know where these were. You keep standing up for your little people and I keep shooting the big ones who get angry about it._

 

That morning he hit the training fields so hard that he broke apart the haft of his axe. He left the head and splintered remains in a junk pile on the undercroft floor. He’d simply have to get a new one. That’s how things were.

 

Vivienne had not offered a shred of comfort in the usual way. Instead, she swept past him as she always had, reminding him to behave properly and not pick at his wounds. Once, she caught him slumped over a table in the main hall, and Bull was certain her rebuke scared some of the stripes right out of his clothing.

 

“The Iron Bull,” She snapped, “Just what have I told you about your posture?”

 

“Straighten it, ma’am, sorry, ma’am,” he mumbled.

 

“Your horns should be pointing up, darling.” She touched a hand to his shoulder and Bull could have sworn he saw the ghost of tiny a wink tighten the corner of one eye before she was gone, trying to catch the inquisitor to complain once again about the Fereldan decor.  


He didn’t see Dorian at all, even in passing. Bull had to assume that Dorian wanted it that way.

 

He kept finding nonsensical crap just inside his room, though. So far, there had been a raw potato, a medium bundle of twine, and an empty potion bottle. Bull had assumed that Cole had simply lost his shit until the day he walked into his room to find Dorian’s mabari puppy dropping a pair of slobbery dice on the floor. “What are you—“ Felix scampered before he could be properly interrogated, his tiny nails scratching softly on the wooden floor. The next day, Felix brought high quality horn balm, and Bull had even less of an idea what to make of that than he had the potato.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four: In Nomine Patris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian makes a visit that is long overdue then delves into wishes best left alone.

Dorian had put it off long enough, really. He stared up at the isolated little window at the very top of the newly designated mage’s tower. Perhaps a few more months wouldn’t hurt.

 

“Whatever it is you’re thinking about, stop waffling and do it,” Kyren said behind him.

 

Dorian jumped. “Andraste’s fluffy nug slippers, must you sneak up on everyone in your pajamas?” He snapped, whirling to face her.

 

Kyren shrugged, the hideous gray fabric loose on her shoulders. “This is comfy. Do you know what kind of textiles we have access to in Orzammar? Nug skin and bronto leather. That’s it. Chain mail if you’re feeling fancy. The only fabrics we had were expensive imports for the upper castes. And I,” she pointed to the black rune burned into her left cheek, “was not among them. I’m keeping the ugly pajama suit.”

 

Dorian rolled his eyes.

 

“Now,” she sniffed, “go do whatever it is you’re thinking of doing or I’ll see to it that your next robe is nothing but stylish dwarven nug skin. You’ll love the way it chafes.”

 

Dorian sighed and mounted the winding stairs.

 

Alexius was where he always was, nowadays. A small halo of mage lights surrounded him, the harsh white making his skin look even more waxy and drawn.

 

“You’ve been given your own office, I see,” Dorian said, gesturing vaguely to encompass the corner where Alexius sat hunched over his small desk.

 

“Indeed. Your inquisitor is merciful,” Alexius said.

 

Dorian snorted. “No she isn’t.”

 

“Not really, no.” Alexius’ smile was wry. “I had hoped for tranquility, at least. Preferably death. Early in my captivity I tried my best to get it.” He templar clearly tasked to guarding him grunted her irritable assent at this.

 

“I… you heard about Felix?”

 

“Yes.” His lips pressed together. “I wish that he had been able to take as much pride in me as I did in him before his last.”

 

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have resorted to forbidden magics in a vain attempt to change the inevitable.” Dorian Pavus was not a nice man. It was times like this that he wished he could be.

 

Alexius did not look as hurt as he expected. In fact, the former magister did not even acknowledge his comment. “Felix was ill as a baby, too. We did not believe he would survive the first week to his nameday. When he did, his mother and I named him for the luck that kept him. A name… a name is a wish your parents make for you.” He had not turned to Dorian yet, simply kept scratching away on his research notes. Perhaps he could not bear to look at someone who had been so close to his son; Dorian was not certain he could handle meeting dark eyes the same shade as Felix’s. “Sadly, not all wishes come true, and not all fathers can be good ones. Our names can be our dooms as well as our blessings, I think.”

 

Dorian nodded. Could not say anything more. He sat down on the floor next to the desk and began sorting through the tomes Alexius had scattered haphazardly around his workspace, sorting them by topic, by color, alphabetizing. “Dorian doesn’t mean anything,” he said at last. “I looked it up once, when it became fashionable in the circle to take an interest in such things.”

 

“If you truly believe that, you are not looking hard enough.” Alexius waved his hand, sending Dorian’s carefully sorted stack in all directions with a burst of force magic. Dorian started again, sorting by idiocy of author this time.

 

“Your father and I have the same name, in the essential ways. Defender. That is what our parents named us. Perhaps it is because of this we deserve everything we have made of our sons.” He turned finally, to look down at Dorian. Dorian stared back, unable to look away from Felix’s eyes, far older and more pained than Felix himself would ever grow to be. “We failed you, Dorian. You did not fail us. Never forget that, even if your fool of a father is too blind to see it.”   

 

There was nothing to say after that. Felix’s father looked away, turning back to his notes with a shaking but elegant penmanship that brought Dorian late night memories of Minrathous. Dorian stayed until the books were sorted again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession: I am a huge name dork and this chapter is essentially me being self indulgent and giving you something to read while I work on a bigger, plottier one. 
> 
> Dorian did not exist as a name until Oscar Wilde wrote The Portrait of Dorian Grey, which was not around in Dragon Age Tevinter. (more info to come but spoilers!)
> 
> Both Howard (of which Halward is a variant) and Alexius (which is a surname I know but artistic license) mean "defender" or "protector" and tbh I had to write a chapter about it because I am a huge nerd and the irony is so thick you could eat it with a spoon.


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five: Whatever Helps You Sleep at Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The difference between wanting and needing is semantics, at best.

He had The Dream again. Of course he had The fucking Dream again. It didn’t even make sense that he might not.

 

_“What is it that you know?” she asked. She was called a Vidathiss, he remembered that now. Couldn’t recall anything else. Just her name and the crackling magic in her hand._

_“I don’t—“ He couldn’t remember. “I’m not—“ For the life of him, he couldn’t remember._

_“You know nothing,” she hissed, and struck at him. She was right-handed, and that seemed wrong to him in some inexplicable way._

_“What is your name?” She asked._

_“I don’t have one.” He knew that. He remembered the answer to that question. It had been the same last time._

_She hit him again, this time with enough force that he awoke alone in his bed with a start._

 

There was never a mark on his face. Not even in the dream. There was never anyone else there, and the stars outside his roof were suffocating in their cold, glittering distance. Bull felt himself afflicted with a longing more powerful than anything he could recall since he had sat up in bed and begged his Tama to show him how to carve the demons out. Before he could consider the implications of his sudden loss of emotional control he was shrugging his pants on and padding his way barefoot across Skyhold to the faint light emanating from underneath a less-than-familiar door.

 

Before he had gathered his thoughts or finished his third knock, Dorian answered him. “Yes?” The mage asked, leaning in his doorway.

 

"I just wanted—“ Bull  stopped, the words biting and clumsy on his tongue. He had once told someone "I want to put my tongue up your asshole and have you just sort of wiggle around" without so much as a twitch.  He had said any number of equally filthy things to Dorian himself without ever batting an eye. But this was different. He could no longer find the sharp dividing lines between want and need and he wasn't sure how he was supposed to deal with this shit without the Qun. Wasn't sure the Qun had ever covered it. So the words got stuck in his throat, horrid jagged things that made it hard for him to say what he needed, what he wanted, that for once they were the same. But Dorian stood there waiting as though he expected an answer nonetheless. "I just needed to see you," he said. "After everything."  
  
There was a long pause. Dorian’s face softened by degrees and Bull could see the jangling nervousness behind his honey dark eyes. For once it made him feel better. For once he was not alone. "I wanted to see you too," Dorian answered at last. “Come in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe it? The plot actually moved forwards in this chapter! :O


	26. Chapter Twenty-Six: Tangeme, Habeme, Credeme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull needs to be shown a thing or two about the definition of the word "savages."

“Nice ceiling,” Bull said lamely.

 

Dorian decided he was simply unwilling to acknowledge that. “Do you want anything?” He asked. He had not meant it to be an accusation, had only intended to offer the meager food and drink he kept in his rooms, but it became one somehow on the way out of his mouth. It had been well over a week, closer now to two, since Bull had left the Qun. A _week_ and Bull had not once come to him. Dorian had done what he could from a distance, had quietly sent the horn balm he and Stitches had made along with Felix, had made certain Sera was standing watch over him (though she hardly needed to be told; having her favor was a bit like keeping a rabid squirrel around for protection), and still he had not come to Dorian. It rankled in a way no mistrustful jibe about the blood-magicky Vint had since coming south.

 

“What are you offering?” The question came back defensive. Dorian didn’t go find him, either.

 

Dorian thought for a moment. They did not speak the same languages, he and Bull. Or perhaps they did and that was the problem. Dorian knew only that words like trust and intimacy felt heavy, unwieldy on his tongue. Wasn't sure he could spell out the enormity of them.

 

“Cocoa,” he said at last.

 

“Cocoa, then,” Bull repeated. It was easily the most subtext-laden drink order Dorian had ever taken, including his month as a cocktail waiter in Orlais.

 

Dorian took the cocoa powder and sugar from his bag under the bed and the small kettle that had come with his room from its place by the tiny hearth. He fetched the pitcher of milk someone seemed to keep leaving outside his door every morning and began to heat it up in the kettle. Felix rumbled drowsily from his still-too-large basket next to the fire, but seemed otherwise uninterested in the proceedings.

 

He avoided using magic, both because Bull clearly still found it unsettling and as an excuse to keep his back to the other man just a while longer. He spooned the sugar—Fereldans used sugar extracted from beets, as it was far too cold a climate for growing the cane sugar of Tevinter; it was a process he tried never to think about—and the cocoa, imported from the far north, into two mugs. When the milk began to steam he poured it over them and whisked in earnest. Lucretia, a family slave since his childhood, had told him once that the secret to making good cocoa with no powdery lumps was nothing more than a small whisk and an indomitable willingness to beat it into submission. Dorian definitely had both of those things.

 

He glanced up to find Bull still standing awkwardly just inside of the doorway. His horns were perhaps a hand’s width from scratching the ceiling the way he stood right now. “This room contains both a chair and a bed, you know,” Dorian hinted. He turned back to his whisking, fully expecting to find Bull on his bed, perhaps already removing clothing—not that they’d ever actually made it very far with that part in the past—when he turned back around.

 

What actually happened was Bull taking another step towards the room’s center, placing himself even more in the way than he had been previously. Dorian sighed and put the mug he was working on down, flapping a hand at the whisk to indicate it should continue stirring without his guidance. The many corded muscles of Bull’s neck tensed almost imperceptibly, but the upturn of lips he gave to Dorian was… indulgent. Almost fond.

 

“Here,” Dorian pressed the finished mug to Bull’s hand and the Bull towards his bed. Bull allowed himself to be pressed. Had it been otherwise, Dorian could not possibly have moved him. This thing they were having, it was practically communication.

 

Bull was far too stoic to groan when he took his weight off of his bum knee, his bad ankle, so recently re-healed. All the same, Dorian at least imagined he could see a slight, silent relief when the other man lowered himself to the bed.

 

“May I?” Dorian asked.

 

Bull let out a grunting sort of yes before either of them realized Dorian had not actually given any indication of his intent. Somewhere behind him, the whisk clicked to silence.

 

Dorian first removed the eye patch. It was a silly little thing, but there was a piece of him, a greedy piece that bruised his lungs and went screaming through his heart, that wanted nothing more than to see all the gnarled parts of Bull. It was, perhaps, the prideful, nasty section of himself. The part that couldn’t bear to be the weakest, the worst hurt. The Iron Bull had taken an astounding amount of damage in his life. Dorian wanted to see all of it.

 

So it was that Dorian removed Bull’s eyepatch and placed it on his vanity. And wasn’t that the greatest visual pun he’d put together in his lifetime. Bull’s cocoa had been forgotten on the nightstand. His own mug sat near the eyepatch, completely untouched.

 

“May I?” he whispered again.

 

“Yes,” he knelt to undo the latches of the leg brace, the harness, the belt. It was not until he was confronted with it that Dorian realized Bull wasn’t wearing his boots.

 

_May I? May I? May I?_

_Yes. Yes. Yes._

 

Dorian stopped at the pants. He looked up to meet Bull’s one good eye and the scarified divot he had paid for Krem. Dorian had yet to figure out what their conversation was about but he knew they hadn’t been talking about sex.

 

They could be, though. He stood and made eye contact, Bull’s possessions in a neat pile on the floor. He thought about the truth, its dependency on language. Order and serenity. The mother tongue Bull left behind. He thought of the word _savages._

 

“May I?” he asked, and this time he knew what he was asking for. Bull was a man of action. It was the only language they shared.

 

Bull kissed him. “Yes.”

 

Dorian surprised himself when he realized the good night kisses were the thing he would miss most from this.

 

“Choose a word,” he murmured, sinking to back his knees once more.

 

“Was gonna let you,” Bull grunted as Dorian’s hands skimmed under the fabric of his waistband.

 

“Your word,” Dorian insisted. He was not a fool. He had used safewords before. Other places, other men. If a single word was going to be the end of this, whatever it was, it was going to be Bull’s word and not his.

 

“Katoh, then.”

 

Dorian almost laughed. Of course it would be Qunlat. He could hardly expect anything different. “The word is Katoh,” he repeated, tasting the shape of it.

 

His room had no window, and Bull’s scars appeared stark in the firelight. Dorian kissed one that began low on his hip.

Brave, strong, violent. But not brutal. Never savage.

Bull put a hand to his shoulder but did not squeeze, terrified of glass bones being broken.

 

“More.” Dorian did not move his mouth from its place against him. When Bull trailed his thumb across his collarbone Dorian began unlacing his pants. “More,” he said again, and found himself being tugged carefully, so carefully, into Bull’s waiting lap.

 

Bull was hard beneath his thighs and Dorian ached to rut against him but Bull seemed to be in no rush. He kissed Dorian with a kind of languid intensity. Like he meant to fuck him, but didn’t mind if such a thing took tonight and all the next day. Dorian envied him his control as Bull tried to settle him there. Dorian twisted to spread legs across the Qunari’s waist, his thighs giving a heady stretching burn and his cock grazing against the other man’s.

 

Bull favored him with a bright, toothy grin. Like Dorian was clever for having discovered he could position himself like that. Like he was proud of this.

 

Dorian shuddered under the weight of it and was immensely gad when Bull occupied his lips with sucking love bites into his neck instead. Well—starting to, at any rate.

 

“This okay?” Bull asked, his voice reverberating against Dorian’s neck as he licked a long stripe there before he returned to the sucking and the teeth.

 

“Yes,” he said. Gasped. Dorian Pavus was a weak man.

 

“Sure? I could go lower if you don’t want people to—“

 

“No.” He began to rut. “There.”

 

Bull’s mouth returned to the very center of his throat. No collar was high enough. No scarf would cover it. His efforts pinched and Dorian gasped. He could not see the already blooming darkness, but he could imagine. They would both simply have to live with their decisions. 

 

Bull wrenched him roughly closer with one hand. The other, the hand missing two fingers, caught both of Dorian’s own and held them above his head at the wrists. Dorian wondered idly what had become of the fingers’ ends, but he had more immediate things to focus on just then. His right hand, the hand not holding both of Dorian’s, dug into the clothed crack of his ass and the things Dorian would do had he a range of motion like that.

 

Bull groaned his pleasure and Dorian felt the low scrape of all those teeth. The rasping vulnerable pleasure of it. The distinct clutch of something that was definitely, horribly, not fear in his belly. He still couldn’t say any of it. If he could have, now was hardly the time.

 

He settled for thrusting his hips further forwards, feeling Bull make contact with every rhythmic stutter of his hips. Bull pulled away from his neck, rutting faster as he smeared kisses across Dorian’s mouth and jawline. Dorian actually whined.

 

He ran a shaky finger over the blemish that used to be Bull’s eye. _Scars are the price you pay for something important_. He was a sweating, moaning mess. He would not learn how Bull lost the other fingers. He would not have an orgasm. He was tempted, sorely tempted, but another second would make it worse. Impossible. Savage. He gathered his voice while he still had it and released the word in a great huff of air.

 

“Katoh!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Tevinter may have left Dorian with a really warped idea of the workings of safe sex. Also, water is wet. More news at 11.
> 
> Translation for this chapter:  
> Tangeme, Habeme, Credeme -- Touch me, Hold me, Trust me.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Seven: Gentle Beasts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Iron Bull finds that certain things get lost in translation, but other messages are heard just fine.

For just a second, everything went utterly still.  Bull let go of Dorian as though he had been electrocuted and did his best to disentangle himself from beneath the mage.

 

“What’s wrong? What happened? Do you need me to—?” Bull clamped his mouth shut. No questions asked. That’s what he always promised the people he took to bed. He and Dorian had skipped over the actual conversation part, perhaps, but he owed the man no less. More, really.

 

Bull wanted to run his thumbs along Dorian’s cheekbones. To treat him like something delicate. Hadn’t he just proven he couldn’t manage that, though? That he wasn’t controlled enough to avoid breaking him? Dorian shook in his lap.  He looked up, frantic with worry and a feeling in his chest that he wouldn’t name.

 

Dorian was smiling at him. Well, not quite at him. There was an odd tremor to the suppressed smirk that Bull couldn’t quite place, but he was smiling nonetheless.

 

“Ah, yes, the bestial savage,” Dorian said when he had recovered his trembling breath. Not laughing, but something that was decidedly not terror. At least not terror of him. “Is this what it looks like when you go mad with urges unrestrained?”

 

Bull blinked at him. He had not told anyone, not even Kyren, that he feared who he would become outside the Qun. But Dorian was clever. Dorian listened far more than anyone gave him credit for. Dorian listened, most especially to Bull.

 

He listened when Bull talked about hunting down Tal-Vashoth, the rare moments he spoke of the reeducation he had volunteered himself for, he listened when Bull never actually said how much he hated platitudes. Dorian always listened. And now he had answered.

 

There was something warm scrabbling in Bull’s ribcage, working its way up his throat. He wanted to lick Dorian. Wanted to capture him here in the dark and keep him safe.

 

He had asked his Tama about that feeling once, the day she had struck a man across the face hard enough to leave a welt.  
  
She had not cursed the man, even as he called her names and threatened to turn her over to the Ben-Hassrath; for what, Bull never knew. Her face had remained implacable until the instant her hand whipped out and found his cheek smug and unprepared and instantly purpling. "Parshaara. Nehraa maraas ebost-an," was all she said.  
  
The man left, clutching his wounded face. Tama ignored him as he tugged at her apron, until he remembered his lessons. She would not answer him unless he spoke Common on Thursdays. "Tama," he asked haltingly, unfamiliar words and grammar heavy on his tongue, spices from an exotic land. "Why did you hit the rude man?"  
  
"And what would you have done, Imekari?"  
  
"Asked him what was happening wrong."  
  
"So gentle," she huffed. He didn’t know what that word meant yet, but it sounded soft and sad on his Tama’s tongue.  
  
"Is it for me not to be?"  
  
She had gathered him in her arms, then. The vitaar none of the other tamassrans seemed to wear felt like steel bands wrapping around his chest.  He was told the other children did not find it comforting. "Love is rarely gentle, my child."  
  
For years, he had puzzled over the phrase; there was no good translation in Qunlat.

 

Bull grinned stupidly, painfully, even as the man above him began to gather his effects.

 

“Dorian.” Bull caught him as the mage attempted to exit his own room. Bull still had his pants on, though barely. Would have chased Dorian if he were as naked as he’d ever been.

 

“Apologies,” said Dorian. “It was the only method I could think of to—“

 

Bull kissed him. Dorian was crying a little bit, and Bull ran his thumb over the damp. He had miscalculated, he thought. He was certain of what Dorian meant, but he hadn’t understood the cost of the message. The reality floored him.

 

“Hey, it’s all right,” Bull spoke softly, so as not to startle him. He’d have to thank Dorian one day, but not yet. Not while the wounds on both of them were still so fresh. “We still have cocoa to drink.”

 

Dorian laughed at him weakly, a huff of air as he came close and hooked thumbs into the pants that hung too low around Bull’s hips. “We could finish if you’d rather,” he said. “Perhaps get all our clothes off this time.”

 

“Nah, rather warm up the cocoa and talk for a bit.”

 

“Truly a brute,” Dorian sniffed.

 

Bull just laughed and dragged him back through the doorway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations for this chapter:
> 
> Parshaara. Nehraa maraas ebost-an -- Enough. You will never return here for any reason.   
> (Literal translation: Enough. For nothing will you return.) 
> 
> Imekari -- child


	28. Chapter Twenty-Eight: Shirtless, Obviously.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull gets a surprise in the supply caravan. Dorian gets an uncomfortable introduction.

That Dorian woke up before Bull the third time they slept together was practically a given. That he was in his own room without having slunk off there was a nice change.

 

They had talked for a while, over the cocoa. Mostly about things that didn’t matter. Occasionally about Tevinter, Par Vollen, Seheron. Dorian had found they didn’t seem to matter much in the dim firelight, either.

 

Finally, when they had both finished their mugs—Dorian insisted that they wash them after, and gave Bull a stern lecture about the latest research on fungal spores when he protested—Bull tried to shape his mouth around the words that had happened.

 

“I knew already, that I wasn’t going to—“

 

 _You didn’t,_ Dorian thought. _Just like I didn’t know you wouldn’t leave after._ But instead he said, “Shh. There’s a difference between knowing something and believing it.”

 

Bull rolled his eye. “Semantics,” he said.

 

“If there are two different words, there are always two different meanings behind them,” Dorian sniffed. “Those of us who weren’t born to a tribe of feral nomads took linguistics.”

 

“Qunari aren’t nomads, they’re conquerors,” Bull had rumbled at him. He went on to say something into Dorian’s pillow about territorial expansion and permanent settlements.

 

Dorian chuckled and kissed Bull good night. “’Conqueror’ is a Tevene word, you know.”

 

“I know,” he said. “Trust me.”

 

Dorian had gone to sleep with chocolate on his tongue and the musky leather smell of the Iron Bull wrapped from ear to ear.

 

Now, in the morning, his mouth was sticky with sleep and Bull’s large arm lay heavy on his chest. He might have settled back into the comfort there were it not for the soft, measured rapping on the door he realized had woken him in the first place.

 

Stumbling and blinking and still fully clothed, he wrenched open the door to be met with a faceful of sunshine and spymaster.

 

“Dorian,” Leliana smiled sweetly. Dorian had a sinking feeling he was going to get dragged out to the ass end of Thedas. Instead, she simply asked, “Have you seen the Iron Bull recently?” and that was somehow worse than her asking if he was all packed for the Emprise du Lion.

 

“Not as such.” It was dark in Dorian’s room, after all.

 

“When you do, will you tell him he may be interested in meeting those arriving with the supply caravan today?”

 

“Why can’t you tell him?”

 

Leliana shrugged daintily. The motion should really have rattled her well-oiled chain mail, and Dorian wondered what sort of enchantments could muffle it like that. Certainly not cheap ones. “Whenever I suggest something to the Iron Bull, he seems convinced that I am leading him into a deadly trap.”

 

“Aren’t you usually?”

 

“Not today. I play a very slow game, Messere Pavus.” And with that, she vanished. Dorian actually craned his neck to see if she had flipped herself over the balcony walkway and into the garden below while he was blinking, but he found no sign of her.

 

“You know it’s rare I find a woman so creepy and yet trustworthy that when she says shit like that I actually have to wonder if she meant it.” Bull sat up in bed, rubbing his eye and shrugging off the blanket in the sliver of daylight. “Plus: redhead.”

 

Dorian scowled at him and folded his arms. “Good morning to you too,” he said.

 

Bull hauled himself out of bed and deposited an appallingly domestic kiss on Dorian’s lips. Dorian felt an awful sort of full body shuddering.

 

“Good morning,” Bull said. “I guess we oughta go meet the caravan.”

 

It was sunny and warm outside. Midmorning, Dorian reckoned. He couldn’t say he missed the precise ticking clockwork of the north. Down here, there were few of such casual enchantments. Instead, people guessed the time based on the sunny in the sky. Cloudy days were something of a loss. It was wonderful, really, not having to worry about it.

 

They found Varric already waiting for the caravan. If memory served, he had been waiting for the caravan every week for the last month or so.

 

“Order new bits for your special someone?” Bull teased.

 

“More like I ordered someone special. And why are you down here, Tiny? Cabot got the Chargers hauling casks to work off their bar tab?”

 

“Nah. I think Rocky had to do a few dishes last week but—“ Bull stopped, staring beyond Varric towards the incoming caravan.

 

“Her.” He said, stunned. “I’m here for her.”

 

Dorian followed Bull’s gaze. It wasn’t hard to spot the person that had caught his eye. Towering above the rest of the merchants and travelers was easily the most imposing Qunari Dorian had ever seen. Excepting, perhaps, Bull himself.

 

Her skin was darker than Bull’s was, a gray so deep it appeared almost blue-black. She sat sidesaddle astride a dun draft horse who looked almost regal for carrying her. And when was the last time anyone actually rode sidesaddle anyways? Her stark white hair was pulled back into a single thick braid that she wore tossed over one shoulder and studded with gold beads. She had eyes like loaded crossbows and she was covered from neck to bared chest in a lattice of almost lacy white vitaar. A pair of silvery daggers with handles wrapped in white leather glinted at her waist as she slid off her horse and Dorian stifled a gasp when she stood upright. She was evenly built, not the mass of muscles that Bull was, but her backswept, gleaming horns came easily to his height. Perhaps even taller.

 

She folded her arms where her blue wrapped skirt came up under her breasts and spoke in a voice like passing thunder. “What shall I be calling you?” she said.

 

Dorian was surprised to hear her thickly accented common. He had been told most Qunari spoke only Qunlat, and even that far from outside ears.

 

Bull stepped forwards. “The Iron Bull, ma’am.” He still appeared to be in some sort of fugue state.

 

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “That is not a name. It is a thing. What have the vidathiss done to you?”

 

He hunched slightly under her chastisement and she said something short and sharp.

 

Bull straightened his posture in an instant and Varric chuckled under his breath.

 

“What did she say?” Dorian asked. Varric had been involved in the Qunari invasion of Kirkwall. It had never occurred to him before now that this probably meant he knew at least a bit of Qunlat.

 

“She said, ‘horns pointing up,’” He whispered back.

 

Dorian hid a smirk under one hand.

 

“What should I call you, then?”

 

Her eyes narrowed, focusing on Bull. “You shall call me what I am.”

 

He nodded, and Dorian tried to figure out how on earth that had answered the question. “Tamassran,” Bull said, and bowed low, horns nearly sweeping next to his feet.

 

Something in her severe, dangerous eyes softened for less than a second. “I thought I taught you how to block properly,” she sniffed. “I do not like to find my Imekari returned with less parts than they had when I sent them.”

 

“But I—“

 

She silenced him with a look. “It reflects poorly on my ability to train you.”

 

“My training is—“

 

“You will be more careful in the future, Imekari.” Her glower was severe, and Dorian privately thought that it was no wonder Bull could now face down a pride demon without flinching.

 

“Shanedan,” Bull mumbled, looking contrite. “I never meant to get you involved in this. If I had known—“

 

“Maraas Imekari,” she soothed him, reaching out to stroke his cheek for a moment before pulling her arm back in. “You are fulfilling your purpose, as I am mine.”

 

“I’m Tal-Vashoth, Tama.”

 

“You speak as if I did not know this,” she chided. “Gentleness is not a demand of the Qun, but the Qun is not everything.”

 

Bull fell silent, unable to look her in the eyes. “If you were declared Tal-Vashoth because of my choices….”

 

Tama laughed, then. It was every bit as booming and loud as Bull’s was. “I will tell you someday why, Imekari. Trust that it was not your actions. For now, you will introduce me to your friends.”

 

Bull nodded and turned to do just that.

 

“Er… Miss?” A petite elf who had clearly drawn the short straw tugged slightly at the Qunari woman’s skirt. She held a large linen shirt in her hand. “It was fine on the road and all if you really had to but we’re in Skyhold now, and if you’d like a shirt—“

 

“For what purpose?” Tama asked, confused.

 

“To cover your, your…” the elf gestured helplessly at her own chest.

 

“My breasts do not need covering. They have vitaar on them.”

 

Dorian was not totally successful in muffling his laugh. If he had any doubts before, he was now certain that this was the woman who raised the Iron Bull. The poor elf girl squeaked out an “of course, ma’am,” before racing off, shirt still in hand.

 

Bull’s mouth twisted to avoid a smile as he said, “Let me introduce you to my people.”

 

Tama’s eyes narrowed as she spotted Dorian and Varric standing awkwardly to the side. Her nostrils flared as she came closer, and Dorian wondered how much of the tales he had heard of Qunari scent abilities was truth and how much was propaganda. Her eyes flicked over him and then she turned to Varric.

 

“You are Master Tethras, yes?”

 

Varric nodded, craning his head all the way back in a vain attempt to make eye contact.

 

“I am to tell you to wait in unguarded shadows and sing the hymn of Rilla of the Fireside.”

 

Varric barked out a joyous laugh. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that.” He bowed to Tama. “My lady, forgive my rudeness but I must hasten to do as you have asked.”

 

“She said you would.”

 

“Mind letting us know what on earth that meant?” Dorian asked.

 

“It means I’m going to visit a friend!” Varric shouted over his shoulder, already running off.

 

Dorian gulped back his nervousness and stretched out his hand. “Dorian of House Pavus, most recently of Minrathous.”

 

She shook his hand. “You are Saarebas.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“We prefer the term mages, but yes, madam.”

 

“You should call yourself what you are. Dangerous things are not to be feared, only respected.” 

 

Dorian actually stammered. “Well, in that case I am just Dorian.”

 

“If you believe this,” she said cryptically. She sniffed him again. Dorian smiled weakly. Felix chose that moment to introduce himself and Dorian could not have been more grateful.

 

She knelt to scratch the puppy, telling him, “The Arishok spoke most highly of your kind. You will be a great warrior someday, I am certain.” Felix wriggled his entire back end and whined at her. She chuckled low in her throat when the dog exposed his belly, whuffing expectantly.

 

Dorian felt better about his own introduction after Tama was given the tour and acquainted with the inquisitor’s inner circle. Bull spoke to her mostly in Common, presumably out of deference to their audience, switching to Qunlat only when Tama’s still-rusty Common wouldn’t allow her to understand his meaning.

 

They had a polite conversation with Josephine, who was apparently trying to strangle a lacy handkerchief to death between her fingers but gave no other indication of nervousness. Leliana appeared with an earsplitting grin, a surprisingly passable knowledge of Qunlat, and an inexplicable plate of cookies. Cullen tripped over his own feet and went down in a crash of plate metal and limbs the second he and Tama made eye contact.

 

Kyren had gone out to the Hinterlands for the day with Cole, Solas, and Vivienne, so Bull settled for introducing Tama to Sera, who did something she would insist until her dying day was _not_ swooning into Blackwall’s arms when greeted; Blackwall, who spoke to Tama with a kind of gruff formality while trying to manage an armful of Sera; and Cassandra.

 

“I was born in 8:71. I can only be flattered by such interest,” Tama was saying as they approached the training dummies from the tavern.

 

Cassandra was there as usual, whacking away at one of them with a stick. Well, practice sword, but it hardly made a difference, did it? Tama stopped dead in her tracks, her hand flying to her throat. She said something in Qunlat that Dorian couldn’t catch, fingering a necklace made of half a tooth on a silver chain.  Dorian had never seen an animal with teeth that large in real life. Thought it must have belonged to a dragon.

 

Cassandra turned to the three of them.

 

Bull looked alarmed but said nothing about his Tama’s gasp. He simply introduced the two women politely and left it at that.

       

“Lady Pentaghast,” Tama said, bending to kiss Cassandra’s hand.

 

Cassandra returned the gesture, a slightly disconcerted eye on Tama’s necklace, nestled between her still bared breasts. “Of course you would be shirtless,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, is there a lot of Qunlat here. Also I am still upset that the wiki has a term for hat (which Qunari can't even physically wear??) and strap-on dildo (I'm not saying we should do without A+ info like this), but there's no official Qunlat for "horns." If they don't come up with something soon a s2g I'm going to start using the Qunlat for sword-hats or some shit.
> 
> Translations:  
> vidathiss -- reeducatiors
> 
> Tamassran -- for everyone who is more casually in the fandom, a Tamassran is a sort of teacher/mom/caretaker/priestess who raise Qunari in little units of kids their own age group. "Tama" is the abbreviation the same way we use "mom"
> 
> Imekari -- child, children (Qunari don't really do plural nouns. idk how that doesn't get confusing?)
> 
> Shanedan -- I hear you
> 
> Maraas Imekari -- a child bleating without meaning. Literally, "meaningless child"
> 
> Vitaar -- poisonous warpaint Qunari use to harden their skin. harms other races on contact.
> 
> Rilla of the Fireside is the Avaar goddess of fertility and the home. I guarantee a full story on the weird statement in future chapters.
> 
> Saarebas -- Qunari term for mage. Literally, "dangerous thing."
> 
> Arishok -- leader of the military branch of the Qunari
> 
> Also, I really really appreciate all the comments you guys leave and I am sorry I am the actual worst and don't respond to like eighty percent of them. Please know that I am reading them and loving them and I am sorry for the crazy long Author's Note.


	29. Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Hymn of Rilla of the Fireside, and Other Stories Varric Made Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric introduces everyone to an old friend. Tama has very specific political opinions.

Sera is sniggering when she yanks on Bull’s arm in the tavern. “You’ve got to come see. Cassie’s gonna kill him.”

 

“Kill who?” Bull grunted. He had too much to think about right now to deal with more shit.

 

“Who’s she always ‘bout to kill, Tiny?”

 

“Fair enough.” Bull settled himself back into his chair without any real hope of being allowed to stay there.

 

Sera yanked on his arm some more. She had no hope of actually overbalancing him, but Bull had little doubt that she would find a way to make him pay for not acquiescing to her wishes.

 

“If I go with you, will you let me come back and sleep?”

 

“It’s not even proper past afternoon yet.”

Bull shrugged, the movement not quite enough to dodge his elfy hanger-on. “Sleep’s sleep.”

 

“Whatever.”

 

He followed her to a shadowy part of the battlements tucked in to balcony overhangs and guard towers; the perfect place to avoid being seen. Dorian sat in a crenellation off to one side, holding a book under one arm and clearly enjoying the show before him. Bull swallowed hard when the dappled afternoon light illuminated the red-purple love bite at his throat.

 

Cassandra was speaking in a bitten-off tone that implied she would be yelling if she could do so without drawing more attention. Varric just kept ducking her blows as best he could.

 

There was someone standing in the deepest part of the shadows, too.  With the sun in his eye, Bull could only make out a shoulder at human-ish height, the vague up and down motion of breath.

 

“You lied to me!” Cassandra almost-shouted.

 

“You took me prisoner and interrogated me, did you think I was going to tell you the truth?”

 

“I thought you understood what was at stake!”

 

“How could I, when you didn’t tell me why you wanted her?”

 

“Children, please,” Dorian interjected, inspecting his nails. “Entertaining as this half hour has been, perhaps we should move on to other, more pressing, matters.”

 

“I couldn’t agree more.” The woman in the shadows stepped forwards. She was willowy almost to the point of distraction, her long arms poised on narrow hips. She wore her red hair loose and gently curling, and it complimented perfectly the waving lines of crimson and gold that crawled up one side of her face. The handle of what could only be a massive war hammer overshot one narrow shoulder.

Her mouth had a gentle smirk to it as she took in the assembled group’s shocked expressions. “Well, Varric. Introduce me.”

 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Varric said, sidestepping well out of Cassandra’s reach. “Arliah Hawke.”

 

~#~

It was not until after yet another round of arguments and an intervention from the Herald, recently returned from the Hinterlands soaking wet and reeking of Druffalo thankyouverymuch, that things calmed down to the point where they could all go to the tavern for dinner. Hawke paid everyone’s tabs in full, citing some business in the Deep Roads that had made her plenty rich. Dorian thought it was the first time he had seen Cabot smile since he met the man. Tama joined them, largely silent and imperious-looking nestled between Sera and Cassandra.  

 

“All right,” Bull asked when they had gotten their food and commandeered the largest table, much to the Charger’s chagrin, “What’s this business about Rilla of the Fireside?”

 

Hawke laughed. “That is the story of the last time I ever tried real diplomacy.” She and Varric launched into an elaborate retelling of their attempts to mediate a territory dispute between a clan of Dalish elves and a hold of Avaar tribesmen. “…so anyways, after the trial by combat was finished the chief’s son came up to me, and asked me to wait for him in unguarded shadows singing the hymn of Rilla of the Fireside,” Hawke concluded. “I thought it was some kind of gesture of trust between the clans, so of course I said yes. Turns out it was a marriage proposal, complete with babies.”

 

Varric snorted. Dorian had never seen him cooperate so much in telling a story before. “We started a totally new diplomatic incident trying to get her out of that one.” Varric chuckled into an account of how he’d had to arrange for Hawke’s preemptive kidnapping in order to get her off the market.

 

In the lull that followed the end of the tale, Tama kept glancing at Dorian, but she addressed Hawke. “You are the one who killed the old Arishok, yes?”

 

Hawke flushed. “He didn’t leave me a lot of choice in the matter.”

 

Tama shrugged. “Asit tal-eb. He would have lived had he obeyed the Qun. Instead he sacrificed many of my people in pursuit of pride and wisdom’s husk. The new Arishok is preferable.”

 

“No hard feelings, then.”

 

“Indeed. You gave him an honorable death. You may put down your crossbow now, Master Tethras.”

 

Varric gave a wry smile at having been caught out and slowly lowered Bianca from where Dorian was stunned to find her loaded and ready under the table, aimed at Tama. “Apologies, dear lady.”

 

Tama waved a dismissive hand and returned to her meat and bread. Bull relaxed just slightly, the tension lowering in his shoulders and Dorian shuddered to think what would have happened had the conversation gone otherwise. Loyalty was such a tricky thing.

 

“Not that I’m not pleased to be helping Kirkwall’s uneasy little peace,” Kyren drawled from her place on the other side of Sera, “but what can you tell us about Corypheus?”

 

“I have a… friend in the wardens,” Hawke said. “He’s been staying out of the public eye since this started, but we need to meet with him.”

 

“You don’t mean—“ Hawke cut Varric off with a nod and he let out a loud groan. “Seeker, just stab me now. I don’t want to spend any longer waiting for it.”

 

The rest of the evening dissolved into a flurry of quiet plans and secretive preparations. Dorian stayed quiet and drank, feeling Tama’s relentless pale eyes on him. Crestwood. Lovely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory Hawke chapter. *waves hands*  
> I didn't mean to put three character introduction chapters in a row, but it's looking like that's whats gonna happen. Buckle up for Adamant, kids!
> 
> Translation:  
> asit tal-eb -- it is to be


	30. Chapter Thirty: Come for the Weather, Stay for the Corpses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crestwood may actually have supplanted Dorian's grandmother's estate as his least favorite place on earth.

The Inquisitor took a big party to Crestwood. It was understandable, uncertain as she was about what she was walking into, but it made for slow, muddy travelling if they wished to avoid notice. Solas and Vivienne beat Dorian to the punch of begging off the assignment, and if he were being truly honest, well…. He glanced at Bull, up ahead churning a muddy path with Cassandra, Charlie and Guingalet tramping down the muck and debris for the smaller mounts of the rogues and Dorian. Perhaps he could pick another time to be honest with himself, then.

 

Hawke kept pace with Varric, bringing up the rear of the formation. The two spoke quietly, but laughed often. There was something in Hawke’s laughter that sounded to Dorian uncomfortably like relief after a long period of agony. Varric hadn’t been needed on the trip to Crestwood with Sera and Cadash both present, but he had been reluctant to leave his Champion’s side.

 

Kyren’s caution paid off as they approached the gates of the village. The rain was so thick it took until they were far too close for even Sera and Varric to distinguish the shambling corpses from sodden villagers. Dorian created a massive wall of fire for the archers to shoot through, but everything was so wet that the one flame spell took nearly all his concentration to maintain. Staff work was impossible from his mount without braining poor Princess, and doing magic without a focus was nearly as draining as the rain, no matter how much he practiced it. After the first assault left him breathless and shaking he switched to ice magic and arcing lightning pulled from the storm.

 

“Here,” Bull’s voice grunted. Dorian jumped when a lyrium potion was thrust into his hand. He had been rationing his own, worried there would be worse to come in the village proper.

 

“Why do you have—“ Bull was already gone.

 

Hawke rotated into a place in front of him, shielding him from the corpses. Varric fired around and over her with the ease of long practice. It reminded Dorian of nothing so much as the mating dances of the swans back in Tevinter—graceful, perfectly timed, and likely to result in serious injury if interrupted.

 

He had barely finished the thought when the back swing of Hawke’s war hammer sent a corpse skull sailing over his head with more force than she should ever have possibly had in her slender little body.

 

Dorian remembered one of Varric’s stories, something about a paragon who had clubbed a darkspawn so viciously that the head had landed in a nug hole a full league away, winning the battle and inventing a new sport at the same time. He ducked. The tale had seemed much more far-fetched the first go round.

 

“Just like old times, huh Varric?” Hawke called behind her.

 

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I miss the Deep Roads,” Varric grumbled. “Down there it was basically this, but at least it wasn’t raining.”

 

Hawke laughed. “What are you calling the weather when you write this part?”

 

Her question was nearly drowned out by a roar overhead. Bull called out “Hello, beautiful!” at the same time that Kyren let out a stream of invective ending in “Branka’s smoking asshole.” Dorian chanced a glance up to see pearlescent scales gleam purple in the beast’s crackling breath of lightning.

 

Varric groaned. “I’m calling it shitty with a chance of dragon.”

                   

The dragon, thankfully, did not seem too interested in them. Surrounded by seemingly endless corpses as they were, even Bull didn’t look terribly disappointed. Dorian downed the lyrium potion Bull had given him, just in case.

 

Everyone was muddy and exhausted by the time they reached the town gates. Bull and Varric went quiet while Cassandra and Dorian sniped at one another, unable to help themselves. Even Sera’s banter went from crude and humorous to downright mean. They were all relieved to see the inn, such as it was, and no one even pretended to care about sharing beds and rooms. Anywhere would do, so long as they were out of the rain. Dorian fell asleep with Bull’s massive arm around him and too little energy to examine his thoughts on it. His last conscious memory was of Bull’s snores and Cassandra and Hawke’s whispers that lasted well into the night.

 

The morning did little to improve anyone’s mood. Dorian woke to an empty bed and an emphatic four-way argument.

 

“What do you mean you can’t swim in plate armor?” Kyren snapped.

 

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “I mean no one can swim in plate armor in the middle of a storm. Certainly not well enough to fight demons at the same time.”

 

“Bull?”

 

The Iron Bull shook his head, one horn knocking against the wall of the small room. “When you see a Qunari, think cat, boss.”

 

“I’m not asking anyone to go for a leisurely lap around the lake, I just—“

 

“You want us to take a boat out to the middle in a storm and close a rift _submerged_ in a magical, corpse-filled lake,” Varric summarized.

 

“Well when you say it like that it sounds—“

 

“Reckless?” Cassandra supplied.

 

“Stupid.”

 

“Nug-brained?”

 

“Extremely damp,” Kyren mumbled.

 

“Don’t forget corpse-y,” Dorian supplied, sitting up in bed. If he gravitated towards the still-warm spot the Iron Bull had vacated in the process, well, that was just nearer to the conversation, wasn’t it? “I personally don’t mind going for a swim, but I prefer any partners in that activity to remain mostly non-homicidal and breathing for the duration, thanks.”

 

“We should drain the lake,” Cassandra said.

 

“You know what I like about you, Seeker?” Varric asked. “If there’s a problem that can be solved with delicacy or brute force, you don’t just shove, you go at it with a sledgehammer.”

 

“No, she’s right,” the Iron Bull said. “If we can’t deal with it while it’s underwater, we have to put it on dry land.” He grimaced. “Well, as dry as land gets in this shithole.”

 

“Fine,” Kyren growled. “Let’s go see who we have to talk to about draining the fucking lake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's possible I stole the Bullroarer Took golfing joke from Lord of The Rings. Credit where credit is due, though.  
> Also, who else is super bitter that f!Hawke only has the one hyper-skinny body type? Just me?   
> I also definitely don't think draining the lake is an incredibly stupid way of dealing with the rift problem. Like... Fuck it. Take a boat out there and let the demons drown. Bring your lightning mage. Fry the entire lake. What the hell are they gonna do about it?


	31. Chapter Thirty-One: Men out of Legend. Or Something.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finally meet Hawke's warden friend... plus a few others.

“Say Hawke,” Kyren began as they trudged towards yet another cave, “When you were in Kirkwall, did you fight off assassins trying to kill the last of House Harrowmont?

 

“The dwarf noble? Yes, I did. He sent me a nice pair of gloves as a thank-you gift.”

 

“Thought I recognized you. My memory of the rest of that year was a bit hazy, though. And not long after I got called back to Orzammar.”

 

Hawke frowned. “Were you injured in the battle? I thought I kept most of the assassins off of Harrowmont and his guards.”

 

Varric began sniggering. The Iron Bull bit his lip to keep from following suit.

 

Kyren’s mouth hardly twitched when she answered, “Let’s just say someone on the other side hit me pretty hard with a lucky swing from a war hammer.”

 

A polite “oh,” was all Hawke managed before the entire party burst out laughing.

 

“Er… no hard feelings, I hope?”

 

“Champion, if I had hard feelings for everyone who had ever tried to kill me I wouldn’t have enough friends left to fight the new ones off with.”

 

“I can vouch for that,” Cassandra said dryly. Kyren beamed at her.

 

They squelched onwards in silence, Bull trying not to think about the half hour or more he was inevitably going to have to spend cleaning his leg brace tonight.

 

Dorian and Cassandra whispered to one another, the low buzz of their voices indistinguishable in the rain and the sucking, endless mud. “Did you lose your own trail signs?” Cassandra finally snapped at Hawke.

 

“Not many,” Hawke mumbled guiltily. Louder, she said, “we’re almost there now, it’s just around this ridge.”

 

“Just around this ridge” turned out to be more, “just up this winding path past a few more of those lovely reanimated corpses,” but they made it to the correct cave eventually. It was easy to tell, because the raised voices coming from _inside_ the cave were the exact opposite of subtle.

 

“Are you hear to kill them? Because if so, I will not stop you. In fact, I approve.” Even Bull jumped when a brown-skinned elf stood up from a rock just inside the cave mouth and stepped into the light. He held a wicked, curving dagger and a whetstone, the dagger’s mate at his back. “It would not be the first time I have assisted someone I was hired to harm, I assure you.”

 

Sera gasped and began punching Kyren repeatedly in the arm. “That’s—That’s—“

 

“Zevran Arainai, at your service.” The elf bowed.

 

Varric chuckled. “Oh, Riviani will be sorry she missed this.”

 

“As I am sorry to miss Captain Isabela. We always seem to have a wonderful time when we get tied up together.” Varric’s mouth twitched.

 

“Zevran!” Hawke cried, then stopped just short of embracing the man. “Er, not that I’m not pleased to see you here and alive and all that, but why in the voidare you here?

 

Zevran’s sloe eyes darkened, though his smile did not fade away. It gave his face the same determined, violent cast that Dorian’s held sometimes. Bull tried not to shudder. He had gone through far too much training to be unable to recognize a dangerous man.

 

“I am out here because in there it is much harder not to be deafened by your friends. Shall we go and quiet them down a bit? Perhaps by knocking them on the head?”

 

“Let’s avoid the knocking if we can, I hear it causes memory loss,” said Hawke dryly.

 

Kyren tossed her a smirk as she led the way through the cavern.

 

Angry voices and the unmistakable sound of smashing crockery came to a sudden halt as the party’s footsteps echoed ahead of them into the cave, leaving only a kind of tense silence. When a nug scampered past them, clearly fleeing for its life, more than five pairs of hands made aborted lunges for their assorted weapons before anyone had processed the actual occurrence. Kyren gripped her daggers, diplomacy be damned, as she rounded a blind corner and walked almost directly into the tip of a broadsword.

 

“Hello to you too, then,” she grumbled.

 

The elf on the other end of the sword scowled at her, his odd tattoos shining pearlescent in the dim lantern light. Bull gripped his new axe. A thing of beauty, all dawnstone shimmering pink with a halla-wrapped haft. The boss had it made for him, and he wanted to be clear he was perfectly willing to put it to use in her service.

 

“No harm will come to the abomination,” the elf growled. The air went cold in a way that was far too literal for Bull’s tastes.

 

“Where’s the abomination?” Cassandra already had her sword out.

 

“That’d be me.” A robed man leaned against the back of the cave, feigning nonchalance as he toyed with his staff. “You’ll have to forgive Fenris, we’re still working on the concept of pet names.”

 

“Blondie! When Broody wrote and told me you and he were shacking up, Maker save me but for a second I honestly thought you two might have started being nice to each other. Good to see some things never change.”

 

Both the mage and the violent elf flushed pink. “One never knows,” the elf—Fenris—murmured, “the world _is_ ending.” He lowered his broadsword. Bull loosened his grip on his axe.

 

“Varric, my friend,” Zevran said into the following quiet, “if you are able to rob them both of speech like that regularly, I may have to make love to you just as often.”  Hawke laughed; Fenris and the mage scowled.

 

“Well, seeing as we’ve all now managed to make proper asses of ourselves, maybe it’s time for introductions. I’m Anders.” The mage stepped forwards to shake Kyren’s hand.

 

“Wait,” said Dorian. “ _The_ Anders? The one who blew up the Kirkwall chantry and started a massive civil war that ruined countless innocent lives?”

 

“Would it help if I said I was sorry?” The mage asked.

 

Varric was doing his utmost to sidle away from Cassandra, who looked like she was about to have an apoplectic fit. “I—I need some air,” she finally managed before exiting with all the quiet grace of a roiling thunderhead.

 

“Right behind you,” said Dorian. He too stalked out, though with significantly more aplomb.  

 

Bull’s legs tingled with the need to run after them, but he stayed to guard the boss and look menacing. At least it wasn’t hard to look menacing. No one in Par Vollen was quite sure what had gone on in Kirkwall, but Bull had discovered that anyone who had been around for it could be terrified with nothing more than a stern frown and bland eyes.

 

Sure enough, Anders quickly began to look uncomfortable and pulled Hawke and Kyren further into the cave, though never out of sight of Bull, Varric, and the group that appeared to be functioning as everyone’s glowering, blond elven bodyguards.

 

Sera twirled an arrow in her fingers and kept her eyes trained on the mage, hands reaching for her bow every time the man so much as gestured too close to Kyren. Fenris had put his broadsword away but seemed tense. His eyes were on Anders as well, but he seemed to be taking his cues from Hawke. Zevran just chuckled, flipping a dagger in one hand and craning his neck to look up at Bull.

 

“You know,” he said, his Antivan accent not remotely flattened by his time in the south, “I know someone who can make that face better than you.”

 

“Do you?” Bull asked.

 

Zevran nodded. “Call him an old friend.”  He offered no more information than that, and Bull didn’t push him. Instead, they waited in silence, each of them trying to pretend that they were not straining to hear their companion’s discussion over the never ending rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I currently plan to make this a series, and when I am done with this story I will eventually write a fic explaining what happened between the end of DA2 and now with Anders and Fenris (and how Zevran got mixed up in it). For now just accept that I am cramming them all into this story because, well, frankly I just can. If Fenders isn't your bag, I'm sorry and please rest assured it is not a major part of the plot. More Adoribull-heavy chapters are on the way eventually, I swear.


	32. Chapter Thirty-Two: Discomforting Fireside Chats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is not the end of one's quest that is frightening, so much as the idea of what comes after.

After the news of the Gray Warden’s calling was passed around, the party packed up camp to head towards Skyhold. Kyren directed a few of Leliana’s agents to stay behind and search for the mayor of Crestwood, but Dorian was uncertain if she even really wanted to find the man. She seemed… unhappy. Cassandra seemed a bit more than that.

 

The blond man, Anders, cleared his throat as they made camp, Cassandra setting up her area while Dorian watched, having already tossed his pack into his and Bull’s shared tent… and he’d figure out what was going on with _that_ a bit later.

 

“Er… Lady Seeker, I… wanted to… apologize.”

 

“You can’t,” she snapped.

 

“I know,” he answered. “But I’d like to try nonetheless.”

 

“You are a murderer. You have the blood of hundreds of innocents on your hands directly, and many thousands more from the results of your actions.”

 

“Yes,” he said simply. “The only reason I am still alive is my attempt to rectify as much of that as I can.”

 

Cassandra’s face softened almost imperceptibly and she turned towards him. “Very well. You may try.”

 

Dorian left them alone, silently headed for the fire.

 

Nearly everyone sat, logs and packs and upturned buckets dragged into a loose circle around the roaring bonfire built to keep out the freezing damp. They were far enough out of Crestwood by the time they set down to eschew secrecy in favor of warmth and a hot meal. Dorian was actually beginning to like druffalo stew over rice, thick and subtly spicy when Bull and Varric cooked it. They had taken over culinary duties on the way up after the inquisitor suggested making a Bartrand for the third time in as many days.

 

“So Zevran, not that I’m not happy to see you, but why _are_ you here?”

 

“Do you not trust me?” The self-proclaimed assassin asked innocently.

 

“I slept with you and Isabela, that’s hardly the same as trusting you.”

 

“We had a magnificent time, though, no?”

 

Hawke sighed. “It was lovely, you deserve every bit of praise for your legendary prowess, and you still haven’t answered my question.”

 

For the first time since Dorian had laid eyes on the man, Zevran’s face grew very serious. “My dear Hawke, surely you have realized that your friend is not the only Gray Warden to be hearing the calling far too many years ahead?”

 

Hawke nodded, apparently finally understanding. “You are representing the Arlessa of Amaranthine.”

 

Zevran chuckled. “No, my friend. There are many places I go where I represent the arlessa in some capacity. Mostly in the capacity of introducing very important people to very pointy knives. What I am doing _here_ is representing myself, on behalf of the woman I love. I have lost many things in my life, and I have accepted that, it is the price of being an assassin. But her, her I will not lose. Not now. Not when it can be prevented. The price of that for me is of no consequence.”

 

“You know it’s likely all of us will get crushed to death by the man’s pet arch demon,” Dorian commented. 

 

Zevran shrugged, the movement caused his single gold earring to glint in the firelight. “I have faced an arch demon for Irenia before. If it comes to that I am willing to try my luck again.”

 

With that statement, the only man in Thedas completely comfortable with staring down an arch demon tucked into his bowl of rice and druffalo stew.

 

“What happens if we don’t get crushed, though?” Sera asked suddenly. They had finished their dinner largely in silence and were now doing small tasks around the fire, those with bladed weapons passing a whetstone back and forth while the others oiled armor or fussed over arrows.

 

“I suppose we might not die,” Dorian answered, shrugging.

 

“Right, got that bit, but what do we do then? Do we just fuck around in big hats or some shite?”

 

“Rivaini seems to have the market on that,” Varric commented. “We’ll have to do something else. Maybe get really shiny belt buckles. I’m going back to Kirkwall, I think. To help rebuild. I’ll probably write a book on all this, too, if I don’t end up dead.”

 

“You should probably start hoping he dies,” Hawke told Kyren, slinging an affectionate arm around Varric’s shoulder.

 

Kyren barked out a laugh. It occurred to Dorian quite suddenly that he had never heard the sound before. It was a pleasant change, if harsh and rusty. Perhaps it helped, being near the champion. Hawke was probably the only person who could really understand the weight on the inquisitor’s shoulders. “I’d prefer him embarrassing and alive, thanks.”

 

Hawke smiled. “Me too.” She stood, stretching, and went to speak to Anders and Cassandra.

 

“Are you two…?” Dorian asked.

 

Varric laughed. “Not at all. I mean, I care about her, don’t get me wrong, but it’s never been like that. Before the battle for Kirkwall she lined us up and kissed each one of us on the mouth, but that’s it.”

 

“She claimed it was ‘just in case,’” Fenris interjected. He shot a glare at Dorian, and Dorian couldn’t honestly blame him for it. He had never met the elf before, but everyone in the entire Imperium knew what Magister Danarius’ “lost property” looked like.

 

Varric nodded. “That and the letters.”

 

“Letters?” Bull asked.

 

“We carry sets of sealed letters,” Fenris told him. Apparently _giant hulking qunari_ was not worth the same glowering caution as _possibly an obscure magister._ “To be opened if one of us dies.” He reached underneath his tunic and pulled out a small set of envelopes, tied together with a leather thong. The letter on top had a crack in its wax seal and was inscribed in pristine cursive along the upper left corner. Dorian made out the phrase _from Bethany, with love,_ before the letters disappeared again to wherever Fenris kept them.

 

“You might call it a romantic notion,” Varric said.

 

“Regardless,” said Fenris, “we were discussing what would happen if we live, not when we die.”

 

“So what are you gonna do, then, Broody?”

 

Fenris spoke in that slow, ponderous manner of his. “It is still… strange, I will admit, to think of myself as having a choice. But there are many slavers in Kirkwall, now more than ever. They prey on refugees and peaceful apostates. And I have a strong arm and much to make up for. Perhaps second only to Anders. It is a purpose, for a while longer at least.”

 

Bull looked at him, his face soft and considering before he said, "Cullen told me the other day that you can raise those Mabari hounds for stuff other than fighting. They help the blind, keep retired soldiers sane, that kind of thing. I think I'd be good at doing that. Be nice to help with something other than some other asshole’s war for a change."

 

"What about you, Boss? What are you gonna do when this is all over?" Bull seemed eager to no longer be the center of attention.

 

Kyren chuckled, staring into the fire. "You're a smart man, Bull. You know what I did for a living before. Tell me, how many retired spymasters do you know?" 

 

"Let's say you'll be the first. What then?"

 

Kyren sighed and rubbed the mark on her hand. She claimed publicly that it did not pain her. Dorian often wondered how far that really was from the truth. "There's a farm in Redcliffe, a big one. Harding's set to inherit it from her family, but she doesn't want a farmer's life. I'm not hopelessly naive enough to think I'll live through this but... if I did..." she stole a glance at Sera. "I have a dream we could be happy there."

 

Dorian’s eyes were still on Bull. He found himself unable to look away, alarmed. He had never before considered the prospect of a future with the word _we_ in it. He wondered, foolishly, perhaps, if there could be such a thing. Bull gave him the barest flicker of a nervous smile. Kyren looked expectantly at him.

 

Dorian swallowed. “If the arch demon really doesn’t crush us,” he said, I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”


	33. Chapter Thirty-Three: The Mangle and the Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That which we call a rose wouldn't smell as sweet.

The return to Skyhold did not go smoothly. Bull could have predicted as much, but nobody had asked him.

 

As it was, his only warning that things were headed from uneasy to disastrous was Varric’s voice cutting through the lunchtime tavern chatter with a loud measure of uneasy cheer. “Curly! …I really meant to warn you before you joined us!”

 

“Warn me about what, Varric?” Cullen’s words trailed off as he rounded the pillar and Anders and Fenris entered his line of sight. Ladybird, his little (but getting bigger) mabari, knocked into his leg as she trundled blindly after him.

 

"Knight-Captain." Anders let out an audible gulp. "Uh... No hard feelings, I guess?"

  
_"No hard feelings, you guess?"_ Bull was not sure he had ever before seen someone actually transcend righteous fury only to move on to exasperation, but Cullen was managing it.

  
"Er, well, that is to say I..." Anders shrank back visibly as Cullen advanced.

  
Fenris stepped between the two, a cool light already emanating from his brands. "That is enough." He said. He turned to Cullen. "If you touch him I will rip your beating heart from your chest and crush it with my bare hands." He then faced Anders. "If you touch him, mage, you and I shall not have sex ever again. Is everyone clear on the terms of this arrangement?"

  
"Yes," Anders mumbled sullenly.

  
"Surely you can't literally rip the heart from someone's chest, I mean I heard rumors in Kirkwall, but--" Cullen began.

  
Fenris sighed, fully activated those strange lyrium brands, and thrust his hand clean through the commander's plate armor and chest, waving it around a bit. Cullen yelped loudly and cried, "it's clear, it's clear, okay! Take your fist out of me!"

  
Fenris obliged, chuckling slightly. The uptick in tension dissipated. Bull saw a good half dozen onlookers silently loosen their grips on staffs and swords. Hawke slung an arm around Cullen and said, “Come on. We’ll catch up. Anders will buy you a drink.” 

 

Bull gave his plate to the nearest barmaid. He didn’t want to be present when the tension rose again, and besides, he had training and a meeting at the war table. He had barely stepped out of the tavern when a voice he’d know anywhere stopped him.

 

“Imekari, you will help me with this.”

 

He turned to find Tama, a large wicker basket full of dirty laundry on each hip.

 

Bull glanced longingly at the newly constructed practice ring. He, the Chargers, and Dorian were all expected there within the next hour. He sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”

 

Tama handed him one of the baskets, re-positioning the other to grip it with both hands. Bull glanced at the contents, raising his lone eyebrow at the sheer quantity of plaideweave. “Tama, whose clothes are you washing?”

 

“It was necessary,” she answered. She led him around the back of the tavern, where she had already set up a tub, a mangle, and a drying line. “You will hang up these things after I wash them.”

 

“You know, I’m an adult now Tama, I don’t have to—“

 

“You believe you are above assisting because you are grown?” she asked sharply.

 

Bull sighed. “No, ma’am.”

 

Tama took a handkerchief and a small bottle of solvent from her belt pouch, wetting the cloth and using it to remove the vitaar on her arms. It had been rare for Bull to see them bared as a child and the smooth expanse of blue-gray, now softened with age, still fascinated him. She pocketed the cloth again. “It would not do to poison your friends’ clothing,” she told him. “Although there are some I would prefer that they encounter an accident.”

 

She threw the first pieces of clothing into the tub and began scrubbing at them, passing them to Bull to hang up. “You know, when I helped you with laundry before, I used to work the mangle while you hung things up.”

 

“You were smaller back then,” Tama said. “You could not reach. It was my purpose to help you. You are bigger now.”

 

Bull chuckled. “A little bit, yeah.” Tama handed him a fistful of large linen shirts. He glanced at them with a raised eyebrow before he started hanging them up.

 

She jerked her chin at them and said, “People keep giving them to me. I do not know why,” before continuing. “Much bigger. Surely you have noticed that one as large as you must take special care not to break anything that he touches.” She scrubbed hard at a stain.

 

“So we’re not still talking about laundry, then.”

 

She frowned into her washing, still working on the mark in the cloth. It looked like a wine stain. Likely to permanently mar the pale fabric. Carelessness. “This name you have chosen. I do not like it.”

 

“Why’s that?” Bull asked, his voice mild once he swallowed past the lump in his throat.

 

“It is not your purpose. You are not a weapon.”

 

“Well, I can’t exactly start going by Hissrad again, can I?” He straightened the shirt with a bit more of a jerk than he had intended.

 

“I was not suggesting it. You were chosen for your earlier purpose because you could be Ben-Hassrath, not because you could be Hissrad.”

 

“I’m neither of those things now.” He stopped before he could say anything about what that meant.

 

Tama shrugged. “You were not always those things before, Imekari.”

 

“I was a kid before.”

 

She stood fully to hand him the shirt. “You were Ashkaari once. You could be again.”

 

Bull hung it up, looking it over. It was scrubbed clean, without so much as a tinge where there used to be a stain.

He stared until Tama’s hand closed on his shoulder, warm but damp from the wash water. “It is foolish to say that we are apart from what has happened to us, but there is always a choice. We may belong to our pasts, or our pasts can belong to us.”

 

“Shanendan,” Bull murmured.

 

“Good. Then you will help me with the next basket.”

 

Bull pulled on the mountain of plaideweave. “Tama, are these… Sera’s clothes?”

 

She nodded. “I am assisting her with laundry in exchange for practice with the common tongue.”

 

“You chose _Sera_ to practice common with.”

 

“She has a great grasp of idiom. Also figurative language.”

 

Bull sighed. At least her shirts would have fewer mustard stains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!  
> I am hoping to get back onto a more regular update schedule soon. Sorry for the delays. :)
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Imekari-- My child  
> Ben-Hassrath -- the name of the Qunari intelligence organization, but literally "The Hearts of the People"  
> Hissrad-- Liar  
> Ashkaari -- thoughtful one  
> Shanendan -- I hear you
> 
> Many thanks to LaviniaD, who supplied much of the awful, painful information that inspired this chapter.


	34. Chapter Thirty-Four: In Peace, Vigilance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Inquisition leaves for Adamant. Dorian has several frustrating conversations with terse, muscular women.

The war table meeting with the inner circle was quick to the point of abruptness.

 

Kyren had barely set foot in the now-cramped room when she started talking to her companions. “Right, so we’re storming the Gray Warden fortress at Adamant because otherwise they’re gonna build an army of demons and fuck the whole world. Cullen and Josephine have gotten us some siege equipment to breach the walls with. Probably half of us will die. A third if we’re lucky. If anyone wants out of dying at the hands of their childhood heroes I’ll understand.” She glanced around the room, her eyes resting on Sera and Blackwall in particular. No one said a word.

 

“Okay, well, we have about twelve hours to get used to the idea, and then we march.” The inquisitor left the room as quickly as she had entered it, straightening her leather jerkin. Dorian wondered why she wasn’t in any of her softer fabrics. Surely the gurn hide chafed uncomfortably.

 

“I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for her,” Josephine said quietly.

 

“I know the responsibility weighs heavily on her,” Dorian said.

 

“It’s not just the lives of our soldiers,” said Cullen. “It’s also the lives of the Gray Wardens. We grow up respecting their sacrifice on Ferelden, but in Orzammar….”

 

“In Orzammar they are revered,” Dorian finished for him. “Wardens give their last in the Deep Roads. I had forgotten that.”

 

“Well,” Blackwall sighed, “I suppose we’d best go pack.”

 

The trip to Adamant took the better part of a month, the Inquisition a slow, fat snake of glittering armor and weapons. They were slowed by the heavy siege equipment and foundering wagons of water, debilitating but necessary in the harsh desert of the Western Approach.

 

By the second week, Dorian wasn’t even cheerful enough to grumble. In Sera’s words, he had sand in “places” and he had already exhausted his stock of clean clothes thrice over. There was no water to spare for washing.

 

He rode mostly with the Chargers or Cassandra. Bull was preternaturally quiet, shrugging off Dorian’s concern with a gruff statement about not being the one riding off to kill men and women out of _his_ local legends, then with jokes, and finally by simply riding off to one of the other members of their party without a word of explanation or acknowledgement. Dorian eventually grew frustrated enough to seek outside help.

 

“Shanendan, Saarebas,” Tama greeted him.

 

“Er, Shanendan,” Dorian returned, stumbling over the guttural word. Her vitaar pattern was in some ineffable way even more imposing than usual, perhaps in preparation for the coming war. It covered her in thick white curling lines, studded with black diamond shapes that looked similar to the patterns he had seen Bull wear. It stood to reason, he supposed. Tama had most likely taught him to apply the paint when he was first learning.

 

“Why is it that you wish to speak to me?”

 

“I am concerned about your—“ he paused a moment. “About the Iron Bull.”

 

There was the briefest widening of her eyes to note that she had caught the hesitation in Dorian’s phrasing. “As am I,” she answered.

 

“He won’t talk about what’s bothering him to me. I was hoping you might have more success.”

 

Tama raised her eyebrows. “You are not so prideful as my initial estimation.”

 

“Don’t be fooled by my momentary failure. I am actually quite fantastic.”

 

Tama _almost_ snorted. Dorian decided it counted as a laugh. “Are you familiar with the concept of Asala-Taar?”

 

Dorian shook his head.

 

“In the common tongue I believe it is translated as ‘soul-sickness.’ It means… one who is weary of the cruelty of the world, more or less.”

 

“And that’s Bull, then,” Dorian asked carefully.

 

Tama sighed. “I cannot know. I can only ask you to imagine what it is like, despite possessing a gentle heart, to have everyone you know be afraid of you for that which you seem to be. To be unable to prevent terrible things from happening despite what you have given up to prevent them. To lived such a life for a very long time. Would you then not be weary?”

 

Dorian was silent for too long after Tama finished.

 

“Perhaps,” Tama said, her pale eyes never leaving Dorian’s, “for you it does not take so very much imagining.”

 

Dorian cleared his throat and looked away. “Will you speak to him?”

 

She shook her head. The jet beads in her braids clicked and the obsidian caps that armored her horns shone blackly in the sun. “He does not wish to speak of it to me. He believes it a sign that he has failed in his purpose.” She rubbed the pendant at her neck, stroking along its flat sides. Dorian noticed a handful of tiny scars on her fingertips and wondered if they had come from running her digits carelessly along the edges.

 

“What do you believe?”

 

“I believe that Koslun intended to build a society in which all would have fulfillment and purpose. I believe that those who interpret the Qun have failed Ashkaari, as they have failed many others.” She made a fist around her reins, pointed nails digging deeply into her palm’s flesh. “I believe that the besrathari groped blindly for a weapon, and in their haste they hurt _my son_.”

 

Tama took a deep, steadying breath. For one terrifying moment, Dorian thought she was about to cry. Instead she let it out slowly and continued speaking. Her hand relaxed. Dorian tried not to notice the blood on her nails. “It helps him, this Inquisition. Also his Beres-Taar—Cremesius? I believe he is one of your people. But he needs more. He requires a—forgive me, I do not know the translation—a Sataareth.”

 

“Can you give him a—a that thing?” Dorian thought it sounded an awful lot like the Qunlat word for staff, a term he had learned from Krem in regrettable circumstances, but he felt it best not to bring that up.

 

“That is not my purpose,” Tama said simply. “It is possible it is part of yours. We shall see.” That appeared to be the end of their conversation.

 

Dorian sighed and bowed to her, murmuring a surely garbled “Panahedan” before he spurred Princess forwards to catch up with the Chargers.

 

Cassandra caught him before he made it there. “Hawke is attached to Varric as though they share vital organs,” she snapped by way of greeting.

 

“Knowing those two, it’s probably the liver,” Dorian answered. “Is it bothering you?”

 

“Not that as such.” She sighed. “Varric and I have made our peace, I think. But it frightens me.”

 

Dorian had not remained friends with Cassandra this long without learning when to stifle a smart remark. “What frightens you?”

 

“He lied to me… under… more duress than I like to admit I put upon him.”

 

“He says you stabbed his own book into his crotch.”

 

Cassandra scowled. “I cannot say that is entirely untrue. But the fact remains that he endured everything I put him through for the sake of Hawke and her companions. I have never—“ she flushed. She was twisting a lacy blue handkerchief between her hands.

 

Dorian waited. For all that he was not a particularly tolerant man, he was an exceptionally patient one. It was a trait no one, except maybe Bull, had ever seen coming.

 

“…When I read what Varric has written of devotion, I have always assumed he wrote from abstract ideals and not personal experience.”

 

“Surely a Seeker of Truth knows a thing or two about devotion.”

 

“To ideals, certainly. To a cause. But not…”

 

“Not to people?” Dorian suggested wryly. He gave the handkerchief she was attempting to strangle a pointed glance.

 

“It is different for me, yes.”

 

Dorian glanced ahead, towards where Bull rode in lockstep with Krem. The two appeared to be trading a grisly joke of some sort, the nearly matching mauls on their backs glinting in the desert sun as they gesticulated. “Brilliant as I most assuredly am, I’m not certain I’m the one you want to be taking advice from about devotion, Cassandra.”

 

Cassandra gave the poor scrap of fabric a hard yank. Despite its delicate appearance it did not fray or stretch. Josephine had chosen her token well. “Of course you are. _Devotion_ is not your problem. It’s—ugh. Fear, perhaps? Overcoming old habits? But never devotion.”

 

Dorian stroked Princess’ leathery neck and looked straight ahead. “Perhaps it is more complicated than you make it out to be.”

 

“Perhaps it is not.”

 

“Oh, give that here,” Dorian snapped, motioning to Josephine’s handkerchief.

 

Cassandra surrendered it after a terse glance, and Dorian tied the thing gently about the wrist of her shield arm, where it would fit under her heavy gauntlets. The lace was too soft to chafe her even if it was worn for days and Dorian thought he caught a whiff of something that a week ago might have been Josephine’s perfume. “You don’t even know what to do with affection once you have it, do you?” he asked.

 

She didn’t answer. Upon reflection, he discovered that it was entirely possible he hadn’t been talking to her at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for taking so long with these chapters. I have really been struggling both with some mental health stuff and to get through the Adamant section while writing it in such a way that it respects all of the characters without losing the thread of the plot. That said, I am hereby guaranteeing post-Adamant smut and eventual fluff for all. 
> 
> In other news Tama and I are both INSANELY BITTER about how cool and interesting the Qun is in theory vs. what the Qunari seem to be putting into practice. like it is such a beautiful system of thought and it is so different from what is actually happening on Par Vollen and I am just so angry about it because the Qunari could be so much BETTER.
> 
> As always, Translations:   
> Shanendan, Saarebas-- I'll hear you, dangerous thing (Hello, mage)  
> Asala-Taar -- Soul-sickness  
> Koslun -- A Philosopher, original founder/writer of the Qun  
> Ashkaari -- thoughtful one  
> Besrathari -- recruiters and trainers for the Ben-Hassrath (secret police)  
> Beres-Taar -- shield  
> Sataareth -- "that which upholds;" an enforcer, defender, or foundation.  
> a note: Saartoh means "staff" or "stick." a mage's staff is a saartoh-bas. A strap-on dildo is a saartoh nehrappan (literally, "a stick on a belt"). I leave you with this information and allow you to draw your own conclusions.  
> Panahedan-- go in safety (goodbye)


	35. Chapter Thirty-Five: In War, Victory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Iron Bull finally discovers a situation in which he is not happy to see a dragon.

Adamant was an unmitigated disaster, and that was _before_ the dragon showed up.

 

They lost the soldiers at the front of the lines. Nearly all of them. Their comrades stepped over their bodies to take their place, always advancing, never slowing. Not even when those in third place moved in. Bull was with the inquisitor’s main assault party. The Chargers were with Cullen, acting as shock troops where he needed them most. He had to tamp down his growing panic with every swing of the axe, his eye searching out Krem’s maul or Rocky’s sack of grenades and traps among the rubble and the fallen and praying not to find them. He nearly stepped on Stitches when they cleared the East battlements.

 

“Caught a sword while I was tending to the wounded,” the healer coughed, spitting dirt and blood.

 

“Our swords or theirs?” Kyren asked gruffly.

 

“Ours. Fucking idiot bastards.”

 

“You can say that again. Blackwall, bring him and anyone wounded or surrendering alive to safety. Cole, go with them. Tell Cullen if we live I’m giving his troops a polite lesson on the concept of friendly fire.” Kyren jerked her thumb at Stitches. 

 

“My lady, I—“ Blackwall began.

 

“ _Do it, Warden.”_ Kryen growled, already launching herself at an elven Gray Warden trying to sneak around their flank.

 

Cole handed off his remaining poisons and grenades to Sera and threw himself under Stitches’ arm, hauling the healer up with him. Blackwall followed with a stiff nod to the inquisitor, shield at the ready.  

 

They lost people quickly after that, Solas and Cassandra stayed on the East battlements to hold the position and fire into the main keep from above. Vivienne and Sera did the same when they cleared the tower walkways to the West.

 

“Don’t want to leave you alone,” Sera snarled. It was not the sort of relationship talk Bull thought people really ought to have while shooting legendary warriors in the eye, but then again this was _Sera’s_ idea of appropriate timing.

 

“Nothing but magic and demons the closer we get, honeycomb.” Kyren leaned herself against an enormous man’s back, using her own weight to pull her daggers under his helmet and through his jugular. She toppled to the ground and landed a wild kick to a mage’s knee as she leapt up again.

 

“That’s why I don’t want to leave you alone!”

 

“That’s why I couldn’t bear it if you got hurt from coming closer!” Kyren snapped back.

 

“Shut up, both of you. I’m casting a barrier. Kiss goodbye now and then we have to move,” interjected Dorian, hands already twisting on his staff.

 

Bull wrenched his axe out of a dwarf and shook out the blood in the grooves. Dorian’s magic washed over him and he felt the soft pull in the pit of his stomach. It hadn’t gone away, and he never spoke of it to anyone. He hadn’t even told Tama about it. Not yet; the way the fight was going so far, maybe not ever.

 

Tama wiped her blades off on the now-dead warden mage’s robes, seemingly unconcerned with the protective magic washing over her. She had a single, shallow slice running along the underside of her left breast. It likely stung but it wasn’t bleeding heavily. Bull was grateful, but almost annoyed at how unharmed she was.   _He_ had a number of superficial gashes, a leg wound that had bled so heavily he had to stop and patch it up, and a deeply punctured hole where he had been forced to wrench an arrow out of the meat of his own shoulder. It would surely scar nastily, but he would likely get to keep both a living Vivienne and use of the arm, so it was a win in Bull’s books.

 

Tama eyed him and guessed his thoughts. “It would hurt much less if you would listen to me when I tell you things, Ashkaari.”

 

“I know how to block, Tama,” he grumbled, feeling four feet tall and like his horns were just coming in all over again.

 

“Perhaps that is the problem.” She fingered the chain around her neck. In thirty-six years, he had never asked her about it. It was… private. He had known that before he even knew the correct words for such things. “When we get back, if we are both alive, perhaps I will tell you a story. Perhaps you are old enough now to understand why the ending is foolish.”

 

Bull felt that he was perhaps more than old enough to understand why most stories were foolish, and had opened his mouth to say so when Dorian grabbed him by the arm. It wrenched his arrow wound painfully enough that instead of words he let out a sharp gasp.

 

“Now is not talking time,” the mage growled as he yanked Bull towards the main keep. Bull followed him without protest. He thought he saw Tama smirk before she fell in behind them.

 

They passed Scout Harding, unloading arrow after arrow into the teeming mass of demons and Gray Wardens. She had a face like stone and blood dripping steadily to the floor from a heaving cut in her belly. Anders slowed the bleeding in a flash of pale blue as they went by, but there was little else to be done.

 

Fenris got blindsided by a rogue and went down with a loud clatter, his broadsword landing several feet away. He and Anders’ flesh flashed a splintering blue at the same time, and Bull was too stunned to process what happened next, knew only that Fenris stood back up, collecting his sword and kicking away a mass of blackened leathers that smelled strongly of ozone and cooking meat.

 

It was about then that they met Magister Erimond. And then the dragon fucked up everything. 

 

“Someone has to stay here!” Kyren shouted over the sound of centuries-old tower breaking in the claws of an arch-demon. “Someone has to deal with these fucking demons!”

 

“I will stay,” said Tama. She tied a handkerchief she had gotten from somewhere around her nose and mouth to keep the worst of the dust out and then unsheathed her daggers. Bull opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off “I will be fine, Ashkaari. This is not my first dragon. It is not even the biggest. Go hunt it, and I will take care of your little demons.”

 

Bull nodded. “Panahendan.” He swallowed hard against the feeling that he was not going to see her again. There were a _lot_ of “little demons.”

 

“Panahendan, Imekari.”

 

Not far away, Anders and Fenris appeared to be having a brief, murmured argument. It ended with Fenris giving a terse nod of agreement and Anders sweeping him into a kiss, telling him, “Hold the line, my love. We’ll be back, I swear it.”

 

“If you die, kadan, I won’t ever forgive you,” Fenris answered, then straightened and turned towards the army of demons. “You all go after the dragon. I shall stay with the Tamassran,” he announced.

 

Kyren and Hawke nodded sharply, and the six of them raced up the stairs after Clarel and the fucking archdemon. Then there was death, and falling, and a screaming dragon, and the last thing Bull recalled was thinking that if this was what Andrastians meant by “going into the light,” their entire religion was bullshit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: The fade! I hope you are all more excited than I am. I fucking hate the fade so much. So much guys. It squelches and I hate it.
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Panahendan, Imekari: Goodbye, my child.  
> Kadan: my heart (Please accept my headcanon that Fenris calls his LI "kadan" as your lord and savior. Also Sera is honeycomb because BEES!!)


	36. Chapter Thirty-Six: In Death, Sacrifice.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Iron Bull finds himself in the fade, Kyren finds herself surprisingly important, and Varric finds himself with knowledge he really should have had a long time ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I refuse to tag this entire (now officially over 50k!!!) massive fic for major character death when I am not planning on killing off Bull or Dorian, but this is the chapter on the fade at Adamant, and everyone who has played the game knows what happens. So, this is your warning: IT IS ADAMANT. SOMEONE DOES IN FACT DIE AT THE END OF THIS CHAPTER. If you have stuck with me this far, I hope you will continue reading.
> 
> Also, the letter Kyren finds partway through the chapter is a reference to [this Codex entry](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_A_Letter_by_a_Burning_Candle), so there is the link when you guys are ready for it. Happy Reading!

Bull was dead, he was pretty certain. He had not expected death to be upside-down, or quite so damp, but this was death and here he was. He felt that same strange, magical tugging at his stomach.

 

Dorian was alive. Dorian was alive somewhere and still casting magic. Still fighting. That was good. That was more than something.

 

“Are we dead?” Kyren’s voice. Crap. Bull turned towards it and found himself suddenly right side up and plummeting towards the dirt.

 

“No. The Inquisitor opened another rift. We fell into the fade… and survived.” Bull whirled towards the source of a deep voice that did not belong to any of his companions.

 

“Uh… Boss… demon corpse.”

 

“I am not a corpse,” said the demon corpse.

 

“ _Talking_ demon corpse,” Dorian interjected, and Bull’s heart sank. At worst, they were both dead. At best, they were both stuck in the ass end of demon town.

 

“I used to believe I was not a demon. I am Justice. Or I was. Time is difficult to manage.”

 

“Justice?” Anders whispered.

 

“My friend,” the demon corpse—“Justice”—stepped towards the Gray Warden.

 

“Demon corpse is trying to touch people, Boss,” Bull growled. He might be dead, but he still had an axe.

 

“Hold,” said Kyren.

 

Bull scowled at her. He felt Dorian pull back a spell already prepared.

 

Varric cleared his throat. “Justice.”

 

“Varric,” the thing greeted him, inclining its rotted head.

 

“What are you doing outside of Blondie?”

 

“I am… unsure,” it admitted.

 

“Really? Because I thought certainty was your strong suit. You know, strength of conviction? The end justifies the means?” Varric sneered. Bull had never actually heard him sneer before. He had never heard Varric so much as speak unkindly to anyone except Anders, and even that had been a barely contained sort of revulsion rather than genuine malice.

 

“Not anymore,” said the… spirit?

 

“Right.”

 

Bull glanced at Hawke, hoping she would have a better clue what was going on. She stood tight-lipped, her war hammer loose in one hand. She put the other on Varric’s shoulder but did not speak a word.

 

“Okay then,” said Kyren after an awkward silence of suitable length. “Mages, is it a demon, yes or no?”

 

“Yes,” said Anders miserably. “I think so.” Justice placed a comforting, if decaying, hand on his shoulder. Anders leaned into it. Bull decided right then that he definitely hated the fade.

 

“I’m no mage,” said Hawke flatly, “I won’t render an opinion.” The hand on Varric’s shoulder squeezed wrinkles into his duster.

 

Dorian narrowed his eyes and did something both invisible and subtly magic. “Technically no,” he answered, wry but certain.

 

Varric gave a hollow sort of laugh. “He’s not a demon, Birdy. Don’t you know it’s never demons who do the really awful shit? Only people are that fucked in the head.” He cast a glance at Anders as he finished. Bull was acutely grateful, for the first time in his life, that he had been sent to Seheron and not to deal with whatever shit went down in Kirkwall that had cut Varric to the quick like that.

 

Kyren sighed and rubbed her face, seeming to regret the decision instantly when she made contact with whatever shit had wound up on her hands from falling on the slimy ground. “Okay, better question: can he get us out of here?”

 

“Yes,” said Hawke. “He can.”

 

They trudged through the fade. It was wet, mostly. The green liquid that was probably not water was warm on Bull’s calves and about the same slickness as blood. Justice, or whatever the thing was, said little, for which Bull was grateful. Something about its voice set Bull’s teeth on edge and made his bones ache. They met someone who was probably not Divine Justinia. She was nearly as bad.

 

“Great,” Bull growled to himself over the sloshing of his uncomfortably not-cold feet. “We’re in the fade. Where all the demons live. Why not invite a demon to join our party? Why not use that party to follow _another demon’s_ instructions? What could go wrong then?” He kicked a small spire of rock forcefully, expecting to damage his boot or at least stub his toe pretty thoroughly. The whole thing simply floated away into the sky, as though he had loosed a ship from its mooring.

 

“Fuck the fade,” he snarled.

 

Dorian let out a low whistle, craning his neck to watch the rock go, bobbing eerily against the sickly green sky like the floating candle lanterns they used for festivals in Par Vollen. Bull felt an unexpected surge of homesickness as he realized that even if he made it out of the fade, he would likely never see Par Vollen again.

 

Then a new rock spire grew up in place of the old one, blooming and twisting like a slimy black vine and Bull let loose a string of expletives in Qunlat.

“Well,” said Dorian, “isn’t that interesting.” He gave the new rock a shove. It didn’t budge. He tried hitting it with a frost spell, and the spire melted, hissing where molten globs and the fade-water touched. Bull leapt back from the disaster Dorian had created, uncertain what would happen if he touched it.

 

Dorian aimed a weak sort of smile at him, and then said something about how at least there hadn’t been too many demons just yet.

 

Naturally, that was when the demons attacked.

 

Bull’s shoulder felt like it was tearing with every swing of his axe. The arrow had gone clean through, which he supposed was good for preventing more damage or infection in the long run, but right now it just meant both sides of his open wound burned like they had been seared with acid.

 

Hawke smashed the last wisp to shreds of mist, and Kyren walked around doing something creepy that Bull guessed meant she was recovering her memories. A cool hand on his good shoulder startled him.

 

“Here,” said Anders, “I’m a spirit healer, let me—“

 

“No,” Bull snapped, putting a protective hand over his arrow wound. It throbbed. He was being irrational. The warden wouldn’t hurt him. He knew that. He would be better off to have some healing magic, to get it over with, but he could not tamp down the irrational panic bubbling in his throat.

 

“If you’d just allow me to look at it, I could—“

 

“He said no,” Dorian’s voice blew wisps of actual frost as he spoke. Bull wondered if the fade made it more difficult for mages to control their magic. “I would advise you to stop asking, lest I allow him to kick your belly into your spine.”

 

“Magic is nothing to be feared,” Anders snapped.

 

“No,” said Dorian crisply, “but the sort of men who foist it on others are.”

 

The air crackled with static electricity but Anders stomped off after the inquisitor.

 

“I hope you were serious about not wanting any healing magic,” Dorian told Bull. “I doubt you can go back on it now, and quite frankly turning it down in the first place was extraordinarily stupid.”

 

Bull shrugged, the torsion splintering through his punctured shoulder. “I’ve done stupider,” he answered.

 

They hurried to catch up to the rest of the group, and almost tripped over the inquisitor.

 

Kyren knelt on the ground, reading a scrap of paper by the light of a burning candle. She curled up and began to cry, the letter still clutched in her shaking hand. Bull had no idea what to do. Dorian looked similarly helpless from his position over her right shoulder.

 

Varric knelt down next to Kyren and extracted the paper from between her fingers. He read quickly, and when he finished he placed it back next to the candle and wrapped his arms around both of the inquisitor’s shoulders.

 

“This was never supposed to happen,” she whispered. “You know I’m not even Andrastian? I was supposed to be born a gutter snipe, branded as nothing, and then exit the world the same way. Now people have _died_ for me. Brave men and women. With good lives and homes and families. My people don’t even think my spirit is worthy return to the Stone.”

 

“Well, it happened.” Everyone’s heads snapped up to look at Anders whose voice rang out caustic and unyielding. The mage held his ground. For the first time since meeting him, Bull noticed how thin the Warden was, how his ragged robes shook just slightly as his shoulders trembled. “People died for you. Quite a few of them. And now there’s only two things that knowledge can do for you.”

 

“What?” Kyren asked. She did not wipe away the streaks left by her tears.

 

Justice spoke, his voice booming and leaving Bull’s ears with the echo of a distant song. “It can make you a great leader, or it can kill you. There is nothing else.”

 

“And what’s the difference?”

 

“From this moment until the day you die, you may never have doubt that what you are doing is right.”

 

Hawke nodded, though she kept her distance from both the Warden and Kyren. “For once, I agree with them.” She gestured vaguely to Justice and Anders. “And for the record, you are worthy of following. To the death, if need be.” The spirit and the mage nodded in unison.

 

Varric smiled at Kyren and stood, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. She adjusted her leather jerkin shakily, looking around them. “In that case,” she said, “before we leave, we have to help them.” She pointed to a frozen wraith, sitting alone in darkness.

 

Varric nodded and Hawke squinted abstractedly at the thing a moment. “Candle,” she mumbled. Varric plucked the one that had been sitting next to the letter from its base and handed it to her. She situated it in front of what Bull assumed was the thing’s face, and the entire party felt a wave of hope and relief wash over them.

 

They wandered the fade, finding flowers and mirrors and even a tarot card. Bull was returning a very adorable stuffed nug to its creepy ethereal owner when a voice spoke, sounding like it came from just over their heads.

 

“Did you think you mattered, Hawke? Did you think anything you ever did mattered? You couldn’t even save your city. How could you expect to strike down a god? Varric is going to die, just like your family, and everyone else you ever cared about.”

 

Anders’ fists clenched, purple lightning crackling down his knuckles.

 

“That must be our gracious host,” Kyren said.

 

“Ooh, I do so love a nightmare demon. Varric,” said Hawke, her voice mild, “do you remember that game we used to play?”

 

“Ridiculous villain scorecard? Of course.” Varric grinned. “Let’s see… that’s five points for your feebleness and irrelevance, another five for bringing up past failures, and ten apiece for dragging family and friends into it and reminding you of your mortality. That makes… thirty for an opening slavo. Not bad.”

 

They killed three or four rage demons before the Nightmare spoke again.

 

“The Tal-Vashoth savage will make a lovely host for one of my minions. Or maybe I will ride his body myself.”

 

“I’d like to see you try,” Bull growled. He could not help his shudder, but was somewhat comforted by Varric and Arliah’s spirited debate of whether or not the term “savage” technically counted as a fifteen-point racial slur.

 

“Fine, fine,” Varric held up his hands as they approached yet another creepy mirror. “Five points for the whole remark.”

 

“Only five?” Dorian asked.

 

Hawke shrugged. “There were a lot of talkative demons in Kirkwall. It got really boring when they’d all threaten possession so we added a ten point deduction. It hasn’t seemed to discourage them.”

 

“Last time Arliah and I were in the fade we had a sloth demon that wound up with negative forty,” Varric added.

 

Dorian’s voice seemed to have awoken the Nightmare to his presence. “Greetings Dorian. It is Dorian, isn’t it? For a moment I mistook you for your father.”

 

“Does that count as a reference to family or a discussion of my failure? Either way it was rather uncalled for.”

 

Varric shrugged. “I say we give you both and make it an even twenty.”

 

“Ten royals says this thing can’t beat Meredith’s score,” said Hawke.

 

Varric snorted. “I’ll take that. We’re already at fifty-five and Smiley here loves to banter.”

 

Bitching about Nightmare turned quickly to bitching about demons in general, which led Bull to bitch about Krem assuring him there wouldn’t be very many of them.

 

He was in fact doing an impression of Krem when he almost walked right into the man in question. His lieutenant grinned at him, blood oozing from a ruined eye. Bull faltered and took a step back.

“Well that certainly isn’t friendly,” Dorian said, and smashed the head of his staff into Krem’s face.

 

There were more chargers behind them, more people Bull knew, sporting wounds he recognized. Dalish screamed when she advanced, bubbling burns all but obscuring her face.

 

“So many people fear them, it makes sense that they would be spiders,” said Dorian, casually setting Rocky ablaze.

 

“Those are not fucking spiders,” Kyren snarled, laying into Vivienne, though in Bull’s eyes the enchanter was already riddled with arrows.

 

“You see spiders?” Bull asked. He struggled to wrench his axe out of Dalish one-handed. His right arm was now entirely numb and he hoped there wouldn’t be much nerve damage. Grim, his severed head tucked under one arm, silently advanced. “That would be a huge improvement over what I’m seeing.”

 

“I long for spiders,” Hawke sighed. “Kirkwall was full of massive ones. Varric and I got terribly good at killing them.”

 

“What do you see, Hawke?” Dorian asked with a grin, frost blooming from his fingertips.

 

Hawke smirked wryly at the mage even as she swung into the creatures who were not really the chargers at full force, her war hammer gripped in both hands. “Would you believe me if I said my mother?” she asked.

 

Everyone but Varric snickered. He simply grimaced and reloaded Bianca before turning Grim into a pincushion.

 

The voice of the Nightmare rang out as they advanced along the path. “Once again, Hawke is in danger because of you, Varric. You found the red lyrium, you brought Hawke here….”

 

“Just keep talking, Smiley. I have money on it.”

 

“Anders… That’s not even a name, is it? Just a place you’re no longer from. Is that why you became an abomination? To have someone to tell you who you really are?”

 

“You know, my lover actually says worse than that on a daily basis,” Anders told it.

 

“Ooh, bad luck Hawke, that’s a fifteen point deduction for calling Blondie an abomination.”

 

“I knew I shouldn’t have made that rule about it being uncreative,” Hawke griped.

 

The Nightmare continued, seemingly unperturbed. “And you… you’re nothing but a name, Justice. Or should I even call you that anymore?”

 

“You shall not turn me from my purpose,” the spirit answered.

 

By the time they reached the end of the path, Bull had killed Dorian five times. The eight or so Krems had proven much more resistant to the blade of his axe than any of the mages. The Skinners had a tendency to be sticky when he hacked at them, and the lone Stitches spat eerie green poultices and hissed like a cockroach.

 

Bull let Kyren handle that one.

 

Dorian pressed a healing potion into Bull’s hands before they entered Nightmare’s lair.

 

“You need—“ Bull protested.

 

“Drink it,” Dorian hissed, “or I am smashing it on the flagstones.”

 

Bull scowled and drank the potion, if only because he wasn’t sure a dropped healing potion in the fade wouldn’t turn instantly to a pool of acid or something equally shitty.

 

He could, reluctantly, admit that it made him feel better and brought some of the feeling back into his right arm. Mostly pain, but that still counted as a feeling.

 

“Well,” said Arliah as they craned their necks up at the Nightmare. “I did say I longed for spiders.”

 

“I regret that you said that,” Anders told her.

 

Varric shrugged. “At least it won’t be hard to shoot it in the eye.”

 

“There certainly isn’t a shortage of those,” Dorian said dryly.

 

After that it was chaos. The spirit who was probably not the real Divine Justinia did… _something,_ and Bull and the others found themselves fighting a fear demon of a more manageable size.

 

Kyren scrabbled up its torso, using her daggers like climbing spikes, and attempted to rip its neck open. Dorian threw frost for all he was worth, and Anders just tried to keep barriers up over the rogues, Bull, and Arliah.

 

Then it was over, Kyren riding the smaller demon’s crumpling form back to the ground, covered from hands to legs in black ichor and demon bits.

 

That was when the really massive demon came back.

 

“Someone has to clear a path,” said Anders. “I’ll do it. I owe… well, I owe a lot of things to a lot of people. I should stay behind.”

 

Hawke held up a hand to silence Anders and handed him an envelope from the inside of her armor. “I’ll stay. You need to help them rebuild, and I would really like to see Carver and Bethany again.”

 

Anders tried to protest but Arliah cut him off, turning towards her dwarf. “Varric, when the hero goes on a suicide mission, they get one last request.”

 

“Yes,” he answered guardedly.

 

Hawke’s wild blue eyes seemed ready to overflow. “Then you wouldn’t begrudge a foolish girl one dying wish?”

 

Varric looked as though he had choked on something. He stood rooted to the spot, his crossbow limp in his hand. He shook his head. “Never, Hawke.”

 

“Okay then. All right.” She wrapped her arms around him and pressed Varric into a kiss. His hands fisted into the mail on her back and pulled her closer. It was unbearably intimate and filled with a sort of gasping desperation Bull could not remember ever having the energy to feel for another person.

 

He could not look away. He could not stop thinking about Dorian.

 

Hawke and Varric broke apart. Tears streamed down her face freely now. Some were smudged on Varric's cheeks. His own or hers from their kiss no one could say.  
  
"When you tell them the story," she said haltingly, "you have to tell it better. Tell them we were heroes, Varric."  
  
"Arliah, I--"  
  
"Call it a romantic notion," she said, and pressed her lips to his again; only once, and only for a moment. And then she was gone, running towards the nightmare with her glorious hammer thrust high overhead.  
  
"When I write the stories," Varric said helplessly, "the hero comes back."  


“I should still go,” Anders said, “she can’t do it on her own.”

 

Justice touched him, a brief clench on the shoulder. “I was never meant to leave the fade,” he said. “I will stay here for the both of us. It is…” the corpse’s lopsided face pulled into a rotted sort of smile. “It is not just, precisely, but neither am I, anymore. It is… right, perhaps? I enjoy the sound of that.”

 

Anders nodded and held the spirit’s hand to his face briefly. “I will miss you, my friend.”

 

“You are never alone, Anders,” it answered, and left to help Hawke.

  
Kyren grabbed Varric’s wrist and they ran, no one but Anders looking back. Varric stopped dead before the edge of the rift and tried to turn around, but Kyren seemed to have expected it. She hip checked the other dwarf, throwing him forwards into the green rip. "Get in," she growled at Anders, "or I toss you next."  
  
Bull didn't wait to hear the warden's decision. He gripped Dorian's arm and leapt, taking his mage with him. They landed next to Varric, crumpled on the blood-slicked stones of Adamant. Anders followed them, and Kyren stepped out last, a figure of ice-perfect wrath. Bull was suddenly reminded that most Tamassrans thought dwarven berserkers studied much the same methods as Qunari reavers.  
  
She had the face of someone who had drunk dragon’s blood and then asked where the bigger cups were. The kind of person who had just witnessed the death of a dear friend’s heart.  
  
The inquisitor waved a dismissive hand at the sniveling Tevinter mage who started it all before she turned to the Gray Wardens at large:

 

"You lot work for us now," she said.

 

No one dared argue with her.


	37. Chapter Thirty-Seven: Without the Terrors of Darkness Confounding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"'Grownups know things,' said Piggy. 'They ain't afraid of the dark. They'd meet and have tea and discuss. Then things 'ud be all right-'" -- William Golding, Lord of the Flies_

Kyren left the courtyard without looking back. Fenris, his armor in shreds but relatively unharmed, nearly bowled her over coming from the opposite direction.

 

Anders stumbled into Fenris’ arms. Fenris looked him over, concerned. “You feel different, why do you feel different?”

 

Anders shook his head mutely.

 

“Justice…?” Fenris questioned.

 

Anders shook his head again.

 

Fenris’ eyebrows rose, clearly taken aback. “I am sorry,” he said after a long moment. “Truly.”  He cleared his throat, something in his face saying he already knew the answer when he asked, “and Hawke?”

 

Anders couldn’t look at him. He just curled closer to Fenris’s chest and began to sob.

 

Dorian looked away. It felt indecent, watching them in their grief when he had hardly known Hawke at all.

 

Of course, his skittering eyes landed on Varric, and he couldn’t think of a damned thing to say. Nothing that didn’t sound pitiful in comparison to what they had just gone through, at the very least.  

 

Bull’s grip was an increasingly painful vice on his arm, and Dorian had to jerk his wrist several times to get Bull to let go. The Qunari was paying little attention to him, scanning the battleground in front of them. It took Dorian a moment to realize who Bull must be looking for.

 

A human Warden sporting a massive and poorly bandaged chest wound touched Bull on the arm. “Excuse me, Ser. Your friend? The big Qunari woman? She saved my life.”

 

“She does that. Where is she?” Bull gritted.

 

“We got her to the healer’s tents,” the Warden told him. He had a Fereldan accent. “Looked real bad. More than that I can’t say.”

 

Bull nodded curtly and swept off. Dorian followed him. It was better than trying to comfort Varric, at least.

 

Blackwall motioned them over to a small curtained area when they made it back to the Inquisition camp. “I want you to be prepared before you see her,” he said. “It—It looks a lot worse than it is and the healers haven’t gotten to her yet because--.”

 

Bull pushed past him by sheer force of ferocious glower and opened the curtain. Dorian had perhaps half a second to absorb the flickering panic and relief in Bull’s face before it and every other emotion was shut out entirely.

 

“I have to go,” Blackwall mumbled. “Scout Harding keeps trying to get herself out of bed.”

 

Tama was sitting up slightly on the pallet they had given her in lieu of a bed. She appeared to have been talking to Sera, who sported a clean white bandage on what Dorian guessed to be a cracked skull.

 

A blast of rage demon’s fire had caught Tama on one shoulder and left a burn that splashed all the way from her right upper arm and the side of her neck to end at her cheek, the charred and puckered skin pulling one side of her mouth into what Dorian knew was likely to be something of a permanent grimace. It had to be excruciating.

 

The Iron Bull appeared to be at a loss for words until Sera broke the silence. “Andraste’s glowing titties, Bull. At least we frigging lived.”

 

Bull snorted and sat down next to Tama. Dorian felt an aching sort of fondness watching him attempt to cram his large frame into the space. “That’s going to scar, you know.” Bull offered her a water skin, which she accepted left handed.

 

“I took down twenty demons getting this. You are punctured through. Again. How many have you slain?”

 

“Just one, but it was really fucking big.”

 

The unmarred portion of Tama’s face began scowling. “Parshaara, Ashkari.”

 

“I’m just saying. I thought you knew how to block.”

 

Tama snorted and glanced towards Sera. “What was that phrase that you were teaching to me?”

 

Sera whispered to her and sniggered.

 

Tama began to nod and then stiffly aborted the gesture. “Eat my entire ass, Ashkari,” she said.

 

 

~#~  
Leliana drummed her fingers against her desktop. Josephine pushed open her heavy office door. There was a soft scratching behind her in the hallway.

 

“Have my people given you a copy of the preliminary casualty numbers?” Leliana asked.

 

Josephine nodded. “I have the report but I have yet to read the names. That is not why I am here at the moment.”

 

Leliana glanced up at her. Josephine’s hair was immaculate as always, and her face had been recently cleaned, perhaps with a bit too much vigor. The ambassador’s nails, however, had not regrown in the month and a half that the Inquisition forces had been absent. She brought one to her mouth even as she spoke and Leliana had to resist the urge to stand and bat her hand away.

 

“Before he left, Dorian entrusted me with the care of his dog, Felix.” The creature so named barked cheerily from the other side of the door. Josephine had left it unlatched, but apparently nosing it open was proving too much effort for him.

 

Leliana nearly snorted, but Josephine was clearly disturbed and so she stood and cracked the door open.

 

The puppy—he was a bit too big now to be properly called a puppy really, but the chuby creature trundling into Leliana’s office was by no means a fully grown war dog—followed Josephine inside, yapping cheerfully.

 

“You spent time with the Mabari belonging to the Hero of Ferelden, did you not?”

 

Leliana nodded. “Turtle was quite a bit bigger than Felix, however.”

 

“The dog who fought the archdemon was named—never mind. It is no matter.”

 

“Then what is the matter, Josie?”

 

Josephine looked embarrassed and quite possibly like she was about to cry. “I cannot feed him. He will not accept food from anyone who has tried except for the assassin that came here with the Tevinter elf and his Gray Warden anarchist lover, the world’s largest diplomatic headache, and since I am already speaking frankly I am not so sure I am comfortable entrusting a Grandmaster Crow with Dorian’s favored pet.”

 

Leliana chuckled and knelt to scratch Felix’s ears. “Zevran would never stoop low enough to harm an innocent Mabari. I recommend you allow him to feed the dog.”

 

“That is hardly the point,” Josephine snapped. Her fingernail was at her mouth again. This time Leliana did stand up and tug her hand away. There was a scrap of red fabric tied into a neat little band around Josephine’s wrist. It looked so orderly and seamless Leliana had scarcely noticed how out of place it was until her fingers brushed it. Felix, having lost his admirer, waddled off and leapt up to nap in Leliana’s abandoned chair.

 

“Then tell me what the point is, Josie. Please.”

 

“The point is that _I_ cannot feed him. Dorian is away with our soldiers, with Cas—Cullen and the inquisitor and the rest of the inner circle. Many of the people who went have _died_ for our cause and I am here with their names upon my desk, and I have been unable to—“ Josephine broke off.

 

Leliana felt the sensible faded cotton of the band at Josephine’s wrist and chose her next words carefully. “Cassandra lived, Josie. So did Dorian and Cullen and a great many other people. Just because we did not carry swords does not mean we were unable to protect them.”

 

The ambassador fell into the spymaster’s arms and began to cry.

 

~#~

They didn't even pause as their caravan came in the gates of Skyhold. Oh, there was the unpacking, the embracing of the loved ones who remained behind, but the Inquisitor, whom Dorian had yet to witness sleeping or eating or bathing since leaving Adamant, ignored it all and kept marching, pulling her inner circle with her. She thrust her report into Leliana's chest without breaking stride, beckoned to Josephine as she threw the doors open to the main hall and tossed herself onto the throne.  
  
Despite Kyren not being Andrastian, she knew how to form an image. The inquisitor's throne was built to call to mind Andraste on her pyre, and the woman who rested upon it, still filthy from the road and dressed in blood-stained leathers was a sight terrible and wondrous to behold.  
  
"Bring him over," she growled.  
  
Dorian watched with the rest of the inner circle as Cullen himself marched Livius Eremond, wrapped in chains, to the center of the hall.  
  
Josephine opened her mouth, making to discuss his crimes. Kyren held up a hand.  
  
"Do you repent?" She asked in a voice like towers falling.  
  
The magister began a sniveling rant about his service to the Elder One being greater in death.  
  
Kyren actually laughed at him. "I sentence you to tranquility, then.”  
  
"You can't do this!" He screamed. "I beg of you, just kill me!"  
  
Kyren leaned forward in her throne, a nasty smile playing on her face. "Oh, you will be dead," she answered, "but I intend to make use of your corpse."  
  
She flicked a hand at Cullen to indicate that the magister should be taken away and then left for her chambers without saying another word into the silence.  
  
Sera stood outside the door to the stairs with her arms folded, put out a hand to Vivienne when the enchanter started after Kyren, a mulish expression on her face. “If she had wanted us up there, she’d have asked for us up there, yeah?”

 

Vivienne considered Sera for a moment and then nodded crisply, turning on her heel and speaking sharply to the servants about having a bath brought up for the Inquisitor.

~#~

Dorian found, after three months of desperate longing to be back indoors and away from the desert sun and the creaking armor and the dirt, that he could hardly stand the sight and solitude of his own room.

 

So it was that he wandered past Cassandra’s training dummies on his first day back in Skyhold, intending to ask her if she’d like to have a drink with him, and instead found one of his dearest friends beating his—and here Dorian’s brain left a question mark—with a large stick.

 

“What in the name of the Maker’s fluffy nug slippers are you doing?” He asked, staring.

 

"Old Qunari focusing exercise," he told Dorian, grunting when Cassandra hit him again.  
  
"He is lying," Tama said. She stood leaning against the castle wall with folded arms, making no move to intercede when Cassandra switched arms and started the process over.

 

Tama’s wounds had begun healing well despite the desert heat and dryness, thanks in large part to Stitches and Anders. Tama proved surprisingly willing to work with the spirit healer, and though he and the burn cream could do nothing about the massive web of pale scarring under her remaining bandages, she had recovered a great deal more of her range of motion than the healers had originally thought would be possible.

 

“It is!” Bull insisted. “Clears your stale humors and teaches you to master your fear.”

 

Dorian was slightly surprised that Bull’s scarred lips could still form the delicate, whispery syllables of a word like “fear.”

 

“Maraas, Imekari,” Tama said, chastising. “You do not wish to think and so you ask to be beaten with a stick.”

 

The Iron Bull ignored his Tama, instead saying something offensive about women that caused Cassandra to knock him flat on his back and hand the stick off to Dorian in disgust. “You deal with him,” she snapped. “I am going to bring Lady Josephine my report.”

 

If Dorian had been in a lighter mood, or thought Cassandra had already done something so unspeakably human as go to see her lover first thing rather than attending to official duties and filling out reports, he might have made a joke. He might have simply asked “is that what you’re calling it now?” just to see Cassandra blush. As it was, he merely nodded and adjusted his grip on the rod in his hand.

 

“Well?” Bull asked. “What are you waiting for?”

 

Dorian hit him with the stick.

 

“Harder,” Bull said.

 

Dorian put his back into it. The rod made a hollow slapping sound against Bull’s flesh.

 

“They’re not going to get you,” he said.

 

Bull rolled his eye. “I know that. I didn’t ask to fucking talk about it. I asked you to hit me with the stick. Should’ve known not to ask a mage to do a warrior’s job.”

 

It was a weak blow to Dorian’s pride, and both men knew it. “There’s a difference between knowing something and believing it,” Dorian answered calmly, but he was thinking about the way Bull tore into Cassandra just moments before, the claws Bull could sink into the tenderest parts of him. The fact that he didn’t. Hadn’t. Wouldn’t.

 

“May I?” Dorian switched arms to wiggle fingers surrounded by tendrils of white-yellow light. Bull nodded shortly.

 

Dorian allowed the power to crawl up his arm, spiderwebbing into the muscles of his shoulder and back. It was an experimental spell, a combination of necromancy and Keeper magic that he and Dalish had been working on, a framework that impossibly strengthened muscle and bone and made the mage who cast it—briefly—as strong as the mightiest soldier. It also might shatter every bone in his hand and arm. It likely wasn’t safe for him to be attempting it. It was also likely he would break Bull’s ribs. Dorian didn’t want to talk about it. Dorian didn’t want to talk about anything.

 

He hit Bull with the stick.

 

Bull had braced himself for the impact, and so he didn’t go flying backwards as he had when Cassandra caught him unawares, but he couldn’t help staggering at the force of the blow.

 

Dorian hit him over and over again. Bull’s skin purpled and blackened, but all he said was “harder.” Dorian hit him harder. There might have been pinpricks of blood around the edges of the bruising. Dorian lifted his arm.

 

_“Enough.”_ Tama’s voice could have made stone shatter.

 

Dorian attempted to check his blow, and the jerking force snapped the stick in half. He dropped the part he was still holding. Shame, Dorian discovered, looked much like an angry Tamassran.

 

“No one is forcing you to speak and behave like you are grown, but if you continue harming yourselves, _I_ will force you to stop behaving like fools.”

 

“Shanendan,” Dorian mumbled guiltily.

 

Her eyes were hardly slits, and the burn that tugged the muscles of her face did nothing to muddle her contemptuous expression. “Yes. You will.” She left.

 

Bull blew out a breath of air.

 

“You really ought to see a healer,” Dorian said into the silence.

 

“I uh—Yeah. I’ll go—something.” Bull swallowed at him. “I just—well, sorry.”

 

Dorian nodded. “And I as well,” he answered.

 

“Yeah,” Bull said. “Anyways….” He raised a hand, lowered it again, and then left in the direction of the tavern.

 

Dorian went back to his rooms, hoping to find rest at last, but it would not come. Instead, the walls were too small around him, the area too cold. He paced, lanterns providing too much light, candles and fireplace alone leaving his room too dark. He felt the grinding impact of the rod in his metacarpals, his radius and ulna twinged like he had tried to rip apart the twin bones. Perhaps he had. The spell was beyond taxing to the body. Dorian laid on his bed, and his thoughts turned to weapons best left unused, to the constant nagging exhaustion Bull must feel, hiding from demons that would never actually claim him.

 

And wasn’t that the saddest thing? To be so afraid of what could happen that you gave up a chance for something good?

 

Dorian got out of bed. He made his way to the room in the tower above the tavern. He pulled off his clothes and waited for the Iron Bull to return.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being patient with me while I got through this section. Next chapter will be up faster than this one, I promise. (It is already half written!)
> 
> Translations:  
> Parshaara-- enough  
> Maraas, Imekari -- a child bleating without meaning, a child talking but saying nothing.  
> Shanendan-- I hear you/I will hear you
> 
> Next up: The Long-Awaited Smut!


	38. Chapter Thirty-Eight: Show Me That the Poison Does Not Take Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They bang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Infinite thanks to auditorycheesecakes and my friend Lindsay, both of whom beta'd and listened to me whine about how hard writing porn is for two weeks.

Bull had forgotten about the deep cultural significance that Fereldans attached to cursing, and the rich variety of language it imparted onto the natives. His healer was only too happy to remind him.

 

“—tore open your blight-rotted mother-fucking arrow wound from a sodding month ago after I cleaned bleeding Fade juice out of it in the middle of a desert drier than a revered mother’s nether parts because you fucked off and decided it would be shitting fun for you to hit yourself with Andraste’s own holy blunt instrument of ribcage injuries—“

 

“I didn’t actually hit _myself_ ” Bull muttered.

 

Stitches pressed his fingers into bruising over a rib. “That hurt?” he asked.

 

Bull grunted an affirmative.

 

“Good.”

 

Stitches packed poultice into the still-healing arrow hole in Bull’s shoulder and redid the bandage, then smeared some sort of sharp-smelling cream that got rid of the worst of the bruising over his side, swearing all the while.

 

“No drinking for the next day or so unless you want chunks of your skin to fall off,” he growled. “Cream does weird shit with alcohol in the blood.”

 

Bull gave Stitches a deeply offended look but nodded his acquiescence before stomping up to his quarters.

 

He was not at all prepared for what happened when he opened the door.

 

"Maker preserve me," Bull whispered, staring at Dorian's naked form, slightly bronze and shining in the dim starlight.   
  
Dorian chuckled. "Why Bull, are you Andrastian?"  
   
"No," Bull responded promptly. He then took a quiet moment to wonder how far gone you had to be before you thought another person so beautiful you found yourself swearing in the name of someone else's god.   
  
Dorian sauntered over, looking supremely unconcerned with his nudity and gently clamped the Bull's mouth shut. He recovered somewhat as his teeth clicked.

 

He wanted to put himself inside of Dorian, wanted there to be no room for anything but him within the walls of Dorian’s flesh. It was exactly the sort of attachment the Besrathari warned people about. The possessive jealousy, the pair bonding. It could fuck you up, make you do stupid things. The Iron Bull found, upon reflection, that he could not bring himself to give a damn what the Besrathari thought of his sex life anymore. If this ruined him, it was worth it.

 

A sort of desperation came over him, fuzzing through his muscles like lightning's lingering static. "Let me kiss you. Please."  
  
Dorian looked at him askance. "This particular outfit of mine was chosen with the goal of a bit more than kissing in mind."  
  
"That too. That's good. It's all good. Please let me kiss you." Bull could honestly say he had never felt like this before. It was not altogether pleasant. His skin itched, if he could not wrap his arms around Dorian he would soon crawl out of his flesh.  
  
"Kiss me then, if it's so important to you."  
  
"It is." He did.  
  
Dorian kissed back. His mouth was rougher than it had been two months ago. The desert air had left it chapped. Bull resented that he had not known that until now, that things could change without his permission.

 

Bull grabbed him around the waist, let himself feel the soft give of flesh between his spread fingers. For some reason, in all his imaginings, he had not factored in just how warm Dorian’s skin would be. He did not let go until they both had to come up long enough to take a breath.   


Dorian smirked at him then, and for once Bull could not detect a hint of regret behind his eyes. Bull regretted a few things. He regretted that he had not been able to undress Dorian himself, that it had taken the both of them this long to get here. He regretted the way smiling at Dorian made his eye lift and crinkle up at the corners, the way it blocked off just that tiny bit of his field of vision when he wanted so badly to drink everything in. But here he was, and he did not regret any of it very much.

  
  
Dorian dug long fingers under the edge of his harness. Bull worked his tongue into the mage's mouth. Dorian's fingers ceased motion when he moaned, as though he did not have the mental capacity to do both at the same time. Bull liked that about him. His mouth traveled lower, angling for the center Dorian’s neck. The old mark he had laid there had long since faded, but the Iron Bull still saw it every time he looked at Dorian.

 

“You want—“

 

“Yes”

 

“To be clear—“

 

“Yes,” said Dorian, and pulled Bull’s head back towards his throat.

 

There is no such thing as a love bite without any pain. Bull knew that fact better than most, but Dorian squirmed and whimpered under his ministrations, like he knew it was impossible for Bull to be gentle all the time. Like he encouraged it.

 

Dorian’s hand fell to Bull’s forearm, tugging him forwards as Dorian stepped backwards from the doorway into the room proper.

 

Dorian fell back on Bull's bed and gazed up at him. He looked so tired. Not physically--physically, Dorian stretched and squirmed, blasting powder at the end of a long fuse. But there was something exhausted and pleased about the creases around his eyes, like taking your clothes off after a long day. Like coming home.  
  
Bull tried not to overthink that.

 

There was oil in the back of the drawer on Bull’s nightstand. He rummaged for it blindly, unwilling to take his eye from its business of appreciating the topography of Dorian’s chest. He found the bottle and held it up for Dorian’s approval. Dorian nodded and spread his legs. The motion did fascinating things to the jut of his hip bones. Bull swallowed.

 

In the liminal space of Bull’s inaction Dorian sat upright and uncorked the bottle with his teeth, smirking and spitting it who knew where. Bull gripped the bottle tighter and pressed Dorian down with his other hand. It was not a rough press, barely enough to be called a push, but Dorian toppled back as though Bull had shoved him, and that was all the information Bull needed about how Dorian wanted it.

 

“You’re picking the word this time,” Bull told him. He wondered if Dorian would breathe fire again.

 

The answer came immediately. “Archon.”

 

The Iron Bull struggled not to let his face twitch. “Been thinking about it?” He murmured. He poured oil onto his hand, set the bottle aside.

 

“About you? Perhaps.” Bull set the bottle aside, trailed one slickened finger up the back of Dorian’s thigh. Dorian’s voice quivered when Bull pinned his arms with his free hand. “The smell makes you rather hard to forget.” Bull supposed he was meant to take offense, but Dorian was here, breathy and rumpled in his bed. He could say whatever he liked to Bull if he kept punctuating it with gasps and whines.

 

“Yeah, well, right back at you,” he rumbled, pressing Dorian’s hands to the pillows and licking up the center of his chest. He wasn’t lying, either. Cinnamon and the color green. The scent wasn’t new anymore. It had memories attached to it. His oiled hand curved around Dorian’s buttock and toyed with the crack of his ass. Bull wondered how long he could possibly get it to linger on his pillows. He slipped a finger inside.

Dorian groaned, and Bull felt muscles soften and stretch around his finger, and he groaned as well.

 

He prepared Dorian slowly and perhaps more thoroughly than necessary. Bull had long since moved his restraining hand to gain more purchase on Dorian’s sweat-slippery thigh, but Dorian left his hands above his head as though he had forgotten he was not forbidden to move them. Bull nipped at Dorian’s bicep, then pressed a kiss to his jugular. He wanted to sink his teeth into Dorian until they met bone. He wanted to press into Dorian’s hips until their marrow intertwined. He did not want to hurt him.

 

“Whatever you want, Bull, please,” He arched up, demanding. “Just _fuck_ me already.”  Sparks mingled with Dorian’s breath. Bull suppressed a shudder as they flew against his ear.

 

The Iron Bull breathed against the unbearable tightness in his chest and applied more lubricant.

 

It was likely it would still hurt, but Dorian had _asked_.

 

Dorian threw his free arm over his eyes when Bull began moving, and it was simply unacceptable.

 

“Look at me,” Bull growled, punctuating each syllable with a sharp press of his hips.

 

Dorian obeyed.

 

There was something warm and fearful curled behind his eyes and Bull kissed him, the taste of cinders heavy on his tongue. He gripped too hard, felt the fragile spongy bones creak under his hand.

 

Dorian’s face was damp with tears and sweat, his makeup streaky to nonexistent. There were bursts of light and heat and possibly genuine fire. This too seemed unimportant.  What could be relevant when Dorian was warm and willing, wet and waiting and right here? Alive and present, exactly where he was meant to be. 

 

Dorian kept closing his eyes and Bull couldn’t stand it every time, but Dorian kept opening them again too. Dorian’s arms looped around his neck, Dorian’s fingernails dug into the skin there, a half dozen tiny crescents around the top of his spine. He might’ve broken the skin. It was a brilliant thought to Bull, that Dorian wanted him so ferociously. 

 

“Was that actual fire?” Bull rasped when they finally rolled off of one another. “Because that’s really hot and all…” he paused to allow Dorian time to appreciate his pun, and was swatted weakly in the arm for his troubles, “…but I’d rather you tried not to set the curtains alight.”

 

Dorian probably rolled his eyes. Bull couldn’t see his face from where he laid with one hand splayed across Dorian’s belly and the other behind his own head, but he was fairly certain Dorian was rolling his eyes as he huffed. “Your curtains are hideous. If we keep at it I might be able to aim better next time.”

 

They kept at it. Two more times. They were brilliant, incandescent, extremely good at sex. Bull’s horns gouged the treated wood of his headboard. Dorian really did set the curtains on fire.

 

They were laughing while they put them out, falling winded back onto the bed, sticky-slick with oil and come and sweat.

 

“You know,” Dorian wheezed—Bull wondered if he could possibly get him to come while he was laughing— “If we stay like this, we’ll wind up stuck together and your sheets will be ruined.”

 

“Then they’re ruined,” said the Bull.

 

Dorian looked at him as if he were insane, to say something like that as though that was all there was to it. Bull shrugged. He could think of much worse things than being stuck with Dorian Pavus.

 

“But Maker,” Dorian proclaimed after the headiest part of the moment had passed, “How much fabric will you go through if you want to do this again? Think of the poor loomworkers.”

 

“I do want to do this again,” Bull propped himself on an elbow to look at Dorian’s face. “If nothing else we’ll provide the area around Skyhold with a stable economy for textiles.”

 

Dorian snorted. “I can’t say I would be averse, but… this is just sex, right? Well, sex and textiles?” He was smiling.

 

Bull’s mind was completely blank. Dorian was still smiling and that was perhaps the most disarming part of the whole exchange.  He had no idea what the correct answer was and so, despite several months of confusion, perhaps a few more of longing, despite years of Ben-Hassrath training and a voice that sounded suspiciously like his Tama’s growling caution in his skull, the Iron Bull looked into the eyes of someone he cared about and, not knowing what Dorian needed, gave him what he wanted instead.

 

“Yeah, of course. Just sex.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't kill me.


	39. Chapter Thirty-Nine: Of Dough and Dragons Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“If thou remember'st not the slightest folly_  
>  That ever love did make thee run into,  
> Thou hast not loved.” –As You Like It, Act II Scene iv.

It was still dark when Dorian crept out. Not even false dawn just yet, though surely it was on the horizon. Sera said nothing when he toed his way past her nook, though she was clearly awake. Her eyes glowed, reflecting the dim light of the banked fireplace on the tavern floor.

 

He wanted to know what she was standing watch for, but asking would require admitting that he was there. He made it out the tavern door and into the comparatively well-lit courtyard before he found a blackened bit of curtain still clinging to a shoulder strap.

 

He could hear his father’s voice in his head. _Really, Dorian, is it truly necessary to char everything you touch, or will just the important items do?_

Perhaps he could go over ice forms with Dalish today. It was always good to know more, especially without the use of a staff. Templars down south were taught to cut in close to break them and then wait for the mages to wear themselves out.

 

“Up early as well? Or is it still considered late?”

 

Dorian very nearly torched the ex-abomination, who currently appeared to be laying out a saucer of milk out in back of the tavern, but reigned himself in at the last minute. He exhaled carefully through his nose before allowing his eyes to actually focus on Anders.

 

“No offense, and I truly do mean this in the rudest way possible, but much as I appreciate your assistance in the fade, I really have no interest in speaking to a mass murderer who can’t seem to get his tongue out of the Imperium’s asshole for five minutes.”

 

“Says the noble mage from Tevinter,” Anders answered dryly. He seemed otherwise unaffected by Dorian’s sniping.

 

“Serrah, I _am_ the Imperium’s asshole,” Dorian answered.

 

Anders laughed. It sounded a bit like vials breaking. “You sound like Hawke.”

 

Dorian felt a twinge of pity for the man at that. He thought to shape his lips into something kinder. “My mistake,” he heard himself saying instead, “I don’t mean to give you an indication that I like you.”

 

“It’s not a mistake, then. She didn’t much like me, either. Or, she did, until….”

 

“Until you lied to her in order to gain her assistance inciting the mage rebellion?”

 

“The one that killed her lone remaining family member, yeah.”

 

Dorian thought of the broken envelope. _From Bethany, with love._ He wondered if Hawke’s letter could have once said the same.   Anders sat down in the little alley behind the tavern, and Dorian left him there, staring intently at the saucer of milk in the morning dark.

 

Dorian ran his fingers though his hair, an anxious habit of which he had believed himself long cured, and came up disgusted. Perhaps he should take a bath. Soot was among the more becoming substances he was smeared with. Perhaps he should find Felix. It had been months since Dorian had given him a bath personally, though he had no doubt that Josephine had cared for his Mabari thoroughly in his absence.

 

Felix was easy to find, as he had more or less grown into his basket, which now sat in the main hall right next to Varric’s fire. The basket itself, Dorian noted, had been lavishly decorated with a great deal of red fabric and matching little poufs, most of them strategically covering areas Dorian remembered as being especially chewed and slobbered upon. Felix startled as Dorian approached, snorting himself out of sleep to trundle over and nuzzle his hand.

He was getting positively rotund, and Dorian smiled at that, burying his face in Felix’s musky fur. He felt his eyes start to burn and clenched them tightly shut. He would not weep onto an animal like some Fereldan infantryman who had just heard the last verse of “Andraste’s Mabari.” He, Dorian Pavus, refused to weep at all.

 

Dorian spent several long minutes simply clinging to his dog’s soft fur and comforting bulk before a voice startled them both. Again.

 

“Imekari, you will come with me.” Had Dorian not spent most of his life being trained not to jump at this sort of thing, he would have. Instead, he took a deep steadying breath so as not to look like he was freezing up. Tama was carrying a large bucket of water and a basket of what looked to be at least thirty eggs.

 

“Er, I was just getting ready to have a bath, actually,” Dorian mumbled.

 

“I did not ask. You will require a bath afterwards, as well.”

 

“I know, but I really oughtn’t be around food without at least a quick rinse, so—“

 

Tama placed the eggs down delicately on Varric’s writing table and then used both hands to upend her water bucket over Dorian.

 

Felix yowled indignantly from Dorian’s lap, and Dorian quite agreed, though he was relieved to discover after the initial shock that the water from the bucket was warm. Nonetheless, he scowled at Tama. The effect was somewhat ruined by the water dripping off the tip of his nose.

 

She scowled back. “You will come with me and refill the bucket, Imekari.” She gathered her eggs back up and swept out of the hall, as though assured Dorian would follow simply because she had told him to.

 

“What does that word mean?” Dorian asked, getting to his feet and trailing after her. Felix, seemingly unconcerned with the ferocious seven-foot woman and her giant egg basket, scampered off towards Josephine’s dry office. “’Imekari.’ That’s a new word, isn’t it? You’ve been calling me ‘Saarebas.’”

 

Tama shrugged. “You are learned. You have books. Do not ask me things you are clever enough to discover for yourself.” She handed him the bucket and opened the kitchen door.

 

Dorian fumbled in the doorway. “Er… I can go fill this at the well, but it won’t be warm….”

 

Tama stared at him.

 

“Or I suppose I could use magic. Right this second.” Dorian cleared his throat and concentrated.

 

He was aware, on some level, that there were mages who could call water with their minds and have it simply appear the perfect temperature; likely Solas was one of them, Vivienne too, come to think of it. But Dorian possessed neither innate subtlety nor an ironclad sense of restraint and self-control. So, naturally, he filled the bucket with a large hunk of ice and then blasted it with a fireball. It took him a couple of tries to get water that was not either still freezing or boiled away, but Tama seemed inclined towards patience.

 

She carefully placed a hunk of starter dough into a large bowl, measuring precise handfuls with her sharp colorless eyes. Had Dorian not known that this was the woman who raised the Iron Bull, ex Ben-Hassrath agent and super spy extraordinaire, he might have truly believed that she was not watching him while he warred with the bucket.

 

Eventually he got the blighted water to a passable temperature and passed the bucket back to Tama. If she noticed that the edges of the wooden container were a bit darker than they had been, she said nothing of it.

 

Instead, she spread flour on one of the broad kitchen tables and upended the hunk of starter dough onto it. Dorian had seen kitchen slaves do much the same in his father’s house.

 

Dorian watched, flabbergasted. "You're baking?" He asked for all the world as if the fact had only just occurred to him.

 

"And it seems you are not assisting," Tama said evenly.

 

"A month ago you killed an army of demons with two daggers and a mean look."

 

"And now I am baking. The bread does not care what I was doing a month ago. Nor do the people who need to eat it."

 

"But you're an assassin!" Dorian blurted. "Not a baker!"

 

Tama huffed. "There is nothing in this world that is just one thing." She kneaded as she spoke, blending the flour and water into the starter dough with her bare hands.

 

Dorian stood awkwardly, glancing at the basket of eggs and the pastry supplies still scattered about.

 

"Must I dictate your purpose?" Tama asked.

 

Dorian flushed and hastily cracked an egg into an empty bowl. He managed to get no fewer than three shell pieces in with it.

 

Tama tsked at him as he tried to fish them out. They kept slipping just out of his reach, seemingly repulsed by his fingers via magic.

 

"I've never done anything like this before," he said hotly. "I'm still learning."

 

"Ash ebasaam." Tama answered. "Wet your finger before you remove the shell pieces. It will ease your work."

 

Dorian did, begrudgingly. It worked.  He slid each tiny, irritating fragment to the edge of the bowl and wiped them off of his fingers on a clean rag nearby.

 

"You will watch." Tama cracked an egg in one sharp movement, rapping decisively on the edge of the bowl and splitting the shell apart with a single long-fingered hand. "These things require balance." She discarded the shell in a basket under the table that looked as if it were destined to have its contents distributed as chicken feed and returned to her own efforts. "You will improve with practice."

 

“Why am I here?” Dorian demanded when he tapped the next egg too hard, sending large chunks into the bowl that would need to be fished out again. “Surely you could have requested help from any number of people who can crack an egg open without assistance.”

 

“Why did you not simply make water, Imekari?” She ignored his question, alternately working flour and ladlefuls of Dorian’s former ice into the dough. “Would that not have been a simpler method of achieving what you desire?”

 

Tama had been forbidden from wearing vitaar until her burn scars fully healed. In deference to this rule, Tama had begun diluting her vitaar with a touch of elfroot paste before applying it. It left faint, eerie green lines across her flesh, like vines beneath her skin. Dorian opened his mouth, ready to explain complex magical theory to her, and then shut it again. Everything he could think of sounded like excuses. “Because it’s never worked before,” he said at last.

 

“And so you think it better not to try?”

 

“It doesn’t work for me, there’s repeated empirical trials. Data. Proof—“

 

“If one wishes to find it, there is always proof,” Tama told him. Then, “pass me the honey, Imekari.”

 

Dorian did. He removed and discarded his second egg shell in silence. The third broke evenly, only a single fragment in the bowl.

 

“Did you know I can smell him?”

 

The fourth egg crumpled in Dorian’s hand. “Sorry?”

 

“Ashkaari. His scent is on you. I can smell him. Put this back and fetch the oil.”

 

“I… Er…” Dorian neither accepted the jar thrust under his nose nor fetched the oil. Egg dripped from his fingers in silence.

 

“He said something foolish to you, did he not?”

 

“I have no need of your pity, madam,” Dorian snapped, at last cottoning on to Tama’s purpose in bringing him out to crack eggs before first light.

 

“That is for the best, as you do not have it.”

 

“Oh no?” Dorian snapped. “Are Saarebas undeserving of your pity, then?” It was a rash thing to say. He was lashing out, and even as he said the words he knew it. But Tama showed no sign of offense. She merely shook her great horned head.

“There are only two sorts of people who require pity, Saarebas. Ashkaari is both at once.”

 

“And me?”

 

“It remains to be seen. I have hope that you are only one.”

 

Dorian could think of no reply, and so they worked in silence for a time after that. At length, Tama spoke again.

 

“Is it so surprising to you?” She asked. “To be loved?”

 

"There is no love under the Qun," Dorian quoted bitterly.  
  
Tama looked momentarily stunned. Had Dorian been in better spirits he might have savored the expression. "Is Ashkaari the one filling your head with nonsense such as that?"  
  
"Does it matter where I heard it?"

  
"Only because I am curious as to how I could raise a child who has never read the Qun."  
  
Dorian took the honey and returned it to its shelf without further comment.  
  
"Do you know the story of the Qun's creation?" Tama asked, apparently not done with the topic.  
  
"I know there was a fellow named Koslun who got a bit too enthusiastic about the 'place for everything and everything in its place' mantra," Dorian offered.  
  
Tama didn't dignify that with a response. Her fingers pressed gouges into the dough. "Koslun walked the earth, searching for a place where all were happy and no one was left behind. A place where all people reached their fullest potential.”

                                           

“And did he find one?”

 

Tama shrugged. “He learned that it is a thing for which it is worth striving.”

 

“That is to say no.”  
  
"That is to say the Qun teaches us nothing but love," she said. "Though perhaps it could do better at teaching us to recognize it."

 

“Is that so?” Dorian asked.

 

“It brought love to me.”

 

Dorian cracked eggs diligently while trying to think of an adequate response. A strangled sort of “did it?” was all he seemed able to manage.

 

Tama nodded solemnly. “The necklace, it is an old tradition, but a powerful one. You split a dragon’s tooth; one half for each piece of your heart. So no matter how far apart life takes you, you will always be together.

 

"I had to find one of the smaller teeth," she continued, not looking at him. "The larger ones are only romantic in theory. Human necks are much more delicate than those of the Qunari."  
  
Dorian looked at her, eyed the necklace made of dragon tooth, the one that had never struck him as an unusual size until he had seen--been slightly bitten by-- an actual high dragon.  It was indeed a small tooth. Tiny by Qunari standards. His lips formed the start of a question.  
  
Tama actually smiled, then. The barest quirk of the lips to be sure, but Dorian felt it counted. "Yes, Saarebas. He is a human."  
  
"He's still alive, then?"  
  
"He is alive, in a manner of speaking. He is not yet dead at the least." She frowned. "Humans do not live as long as us, and he is older than I." She did not actually say he was dying. That his mind was likely gone in the process. Dorian did not ask her to. Some wounds could not be made better by being poked at, whatever Bull said. They healed with time or you lost the limb.  
  
"I had assumed... if he was alive, you would want...." _I would want, if I were you…._  
  
"I have not seen my heart for forty years. I will not seek him out now."  
  
Dorian cleared his throat and tried to find a less painful angle for the conversation. "How did you meet him? Surely he didn't come to Par Vollen."  
  
She grinned, outright grinned, and despite knowing she likely was not biologically related to the Iron Bull, Dorian at last saw the family resemblance. "We met when I was in Nevarra hunting dragons."  


“You met in—when did you—of _course you bloody did.”_ Dorian managed after gaping at her. He sighed. "Well, go on then. Tell me about him.”

 

“I was a Tallis, then. Do you know what it is to be a Tallis?”

 

Dorian shook his head. He hardly knew what it meant to be Qunari, though Bull and Tama were certainly an education.

 

“Tallis means ‘to solve,’” she told him. “At the beginning of this age, to be a Tallis was to solve the dragons. But we were not the only solutions. Nevarra sent its own hunters out at the beginning of this age. Markus was one such hunter.”

Surely, thought Dorian, whatever recipe he was working on did not require all thirty-odd eggs to end up in this bowl. He certainly hoped not, because it seemed he had just smashed yet another nowhere near its intended receptacle. “Er, surely you don’t mean Markus Pentaghast.”

 

“Markus, yes, though I never called him that. We had little interest in what others were calling us at that time.”

 

Dorian recalled a faint rumor, heard years ago about the aged and still-unmarried king of Nevarra. He never wore the royal seal, they said. Instead, the king walked around with a gaudy pendant at his throat. A trophy from a dragon that had long ago been slain. “What did you call him, then?”

 

“Markus believed in naming things for what they are. He called me Amithi, and I named him kadan.”

 

“So why aren’t you with him now?”

 

Tama smiled sadly at him. “Because the Qun still demanded I be a Tallis and Nevarra demanded that he be a king.”  
  
"But surely you could have been happy together, even if only for a little while." A port in a storm, Dorian’s brain sneered at him. But Tama was not that, could never have been that, even back then.  
  
Tama let out a small chuckle. "That is true, Imekari. But it is not my purpose to be happy."

 

“And why not?” Dorian demanded hotly. “Why can’t it be everyone’s purpose? What is it with you people and the bloody Qun and thinking that happiness will get in the way of being happy?”

 

“What indeed?” Tama said wryly. “Looking back, it does seem rather foolish.”

 

“Ah.” Dorian cleared his throat, and neither said anything more until the bread was in the oven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ash ebasaam -- we are all still learning  
> Kadan -- My Heart  
> Amithi is a sanskrit name meaning (depending on your translation) unique, boundless. 
> 
> So first of all, happy (late, at least in my time zone) halloween, everyone!
> 
> Second, I cannot believe I went without updating for TWO MONTHS. Like, y'all gotta scream at me or something if I go more than a month without updating again. 
> 
> Third, I wanted to take a second to address an issue I've been having. Recently, I have seen fics (as in, more than one) and one culprit in particular, that have pulled extensive plot points or noticeable bits of dialogue from this work.  
> Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled that my work has inspired other people to do something cool with theirs, but I was really hurt by the fact that these concepts were stolen from me without so much as an attribution in the notes. I am going to give the people who have done this so far the benefit of the doubt and assume that they really felt inspired by my writing and meant no harm in taking pieces of it to use for their own stuff rather than reporting them or using their names publicly, but in the future I would ask anyone who thinks I have cool ideas and wants to use some of them, EVEN THE SMALLER ONES, to ask permission first (my tumblr is Eugenideswalksintoabar and I can be contacted @trashyataashi on twitter) or at the very least to source my ideas properly in their Author's Notes. 
> 
> I really don't think that's too much to ask and it will save both of us a great deal of pain. 
> 
>  
> 
> _TL;DR: I am happy to be back and please cite any ideas you take from this correctly in your own stuff._


	40. Chapter Forty: Those of Us Forged and Not Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Love is merely a madness: and, I tell you, deserves as_  
>  well a dark house and a whip, as madmen do: and the  
> reason why they are not so punished and cured, is, that  
> the lunacy is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too.” – As You Like It, Act III Scene ii.

Bull knew he had made a mistake the second Dorian left. He had known it before then, actually. He had quite possibly known it before the words had left his mouth, but he didn’t know what to do about it any more than he had understood how to prevent it from happening in the first place. Given his complete failure to rectify the situation even after thinking over it all night, Bull opened his door and went down the stairs.

 

Ale was for victory and celebration. Drowning sadness in drink was a road he had seen too many good men get lost on, and besides, he had to plan things. So he sat, nursing a mug full of water and his own self-pity. That was where Krem found him.

 

"Well, you are a dumbass, chief," Krem said when he’d coaxed the whole bloodied mess of a story out, clapping him on the shoulder. 

 

"You sound so certain," Bull grumbled. 

 

"I am."

 

"Thanks Krem. Good talk." 

 

Krem sighed. He had a bottle of ale with him. Krem had not one but two relationships and never seemed to have a problem with them. Even this early in the morning, Krem was allowed to have ale. "You know, I'm actually sort of an expert on closed-off women." 

 

Bull grunted. 

 

"Well, I mean there's Dalish, who still won't really talk about what happened with her clan. Just recently started talking about shit with her parents. Still says she uses a bow, even. There's Skinner, whom I wouldn't even know was from Tevinter, much less a slave there, if she had been able to get rid of the brand and the accent. You, of course."

 

"Are you calling me a closed-off woman, Cremesius?" 

 

"I'm just saying I know a thing or two," Krem answered. "And one of those things that I know is you are just unbelievably stupid." 

 

"He said what he wanted and I gave it to him." It sounded like a weak defense, even to Bull.

 

Krem rolled his eyes. "He said what he thought you wanted him to say because he was scared of losing you and you answered him the way you thought he wanted you to because you were being too much of a stupid coward to just tell him what you wanted. You fucked it up, chief." 

 

“He’s scared of losing me?”

 

“Out of all that, that’s what surprised you?” Krem snorted. “Honestly, chief. Thought you were a spy or something. The boys and I have had to start pooling money to get him a thank-you gift, the number of times he’s saved your giant gray hide, and you can’t even have a simple conversation with him. If I had pulled this insecure shit on Dalish and Skinner there’d be three lightning bolts and a poisoned dagger up my ass.”

 

"What was I supposed to say, then?"                     

 

Krem shrugged. "Whatever you wanted." As though it were as simple as that. As though the answer was not vast and savage and hungry. "Try telling me. You could use the practice." Krem goaded him, sitting patiently and sipping out of his bottle. 

 

"I--" the Iron Bull was mortified to find that his voice cracked. "I want." The sentence remained unfinished. He wanted the way Dorian had looked at him after they kissed in his room that first time, eyes teary and open and looking at him like Bull was the most astonishing experience he'd ever had. He wanted tousled hair and sleepy, sexless nights talking and cold toes and morning breath. He wanted Dorian and those three words were no longer big enough to carry a weight like that. "I want…." 

 

"Thought so." Krem said. 

 

"I don't know how to fix it," he whispered. 

 

Krem shrugged. "Tell him what you want, chief. Maybe he'll believe you." 

 

Bull stood up. He knew who to ask. 

 

Vivienne poured him red wine from a decanter in her alcove. They drank it out of porcelain teacups and Bull found it comforting that some things were mismatched, even for Vivienne. 

 

“And what is it that you are looking for from me?” She asked when he told the story all over again.

 

"I want..." He was getting closer, he thought. It was easier, though, to confess his failures to someone he thought of as a tamassran. "I want to make it up to him."

 

"Darling," Vivienne laughed gaily and the sound was somehow sad. "I am hardly the person to come to about that." 

 

“Why’s that?” Bull asked. “You had your thing with Bastien. I thought you knew about all this courtly love crap.”

 

Vivienne raised an eyebrow. “My dear, I am Madame De Fer, First Enchanter to the imperial court. I receive affection. I do not give it. _You_ are not in such an unfortunate position as that. I suggest you take advantage of it.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Bull said. He had to find him. Maybe pick flowers or some shit first.

 

 

"Where is he right now?" He demanded. He had checked his room, his alcove in the library. Hell, he had checked his own room just in case Dorian was there instead. 

 

Leliana raised an eyebrow at him. Fucking Orlesians can't even admit weakness enough to raise two. "Surely I don't know who you are talking about." 

 

"Don't bullshit me, Red. I am not in the mood."

 

"He specifically asked me not to tell you, you know." 

 

"That's why I need to find him."  Bull received a calculating look. He did not hide. He did not flinch. He waited. He wanted. He wanted. He wanted. Leliana turned back to the railing, watching the ravens. 

 

"Have you ever explored the basements?" She asked idly. "There is a whole other library down there. Smaller, of course. But private. Secret, even. Always something interesting to find."

 

Bull nodded shortly and took off. He had no clue how to get there, so he just took every downward sloping staircase he could find. At last he found an eerie lower hall. There were a number of doors leading out from them and Bull opened them all, sneezing from the dust. He found Dorian behind the fourth door, listlessly stroking Felix with one hand while the other held a book still open to the title page. 

 

"Bull, what are you--"

 

"Ask me again," he gasped. 

 

"What?"

 

"Ask me again if this is only sex." 

 

"Surely we can have this conversation in bed or--"

 

Bull shook his head. "You won't believe me in bed. Ask me now. With daylight coming in the window." 

 

Dorian glanced skeptically at the narrow grimy window to the outside and back to the Iron Bull.

 

"Just sex, right?" He said. His voice trembled with a frail hope, just as it had last night.

 

How had Bull not seen it? What use was all the training if it came to this and he was still unprepared? 

 

"No." Say what you want, Krem said. You can give affection. Maybe he'll believe you. "I want…" He stopped. Tried again with different words, ones he was sure he had picked up from Varric's romance serials somewhere. "I intend to woo you," he said. 

 

"Maker help me but I think I believe you," Dorian said. He stood and crossed the room in two strides. 

 

Bull leaned downwards and Dorian kissed him, soft and sweet and just the beginning. 

 

Bull felt the shape of the word in his gut but he had never said it. Not to anyone, not even his Tama. He was not strong enough to dredge it up yet, not when it sliced at his grasp, sharp and delicate shards of sound after years of silence.

 

"Amatus," Dorian said, and the word sounded like he was shaking dust off of it. 

 

"Yeah," Bull said, wondering if Dorian even knew he spoke Tevene.

Amatus: _my love; beloved_.

He wanted. Oh, how he wanted. _My love. Beloved. My love_. "Yeah, something like that."

My love.

Amatus, Amatus.

 

He wanted that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy fortieth chapter, kids! It only took them about 60k words to finally start talking about their feelings! As always, more developments to come and thanks for reading. <3
> 
> UPDATE NOTE: This fic is not (and never will be) abandoned. It is, however, on hiatus until I finish applying for grad schools (sometime in Januaryish). After I'm done with those I will be back and PFL&F will at last move to an actual regular update schedule until it is complete. In the meantime thank you all for reading and happy holidays!!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Say hi at [Eugenideswalksintoabar](http://eugenideswalksintoabar.tumblr.com)


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